The beginning of the rest of my life...

I have been a member of bp for a little while now and finally decided to start my own blog. I am a military member getting ready to separate and enter the *shudders* corporate world. I have been wanting to enter the real estate world ever since I graduated high school and my mother mentioned our landlord in passing, although I forget what she said I remember thinking "you know what? I bet i could do that" and dove right in reading every book I could get my hands on. After several years of being overseas I finally have my chance to start and will be detailing my adventure here (opinions and advice welcome).

The plan so far:

As it stands right now, I plan on going to Penn State on my gi bill and earning my degree. Up until a few minutes ago the strategy was to buy a 3-4 unit building with a VA loan so I wouldn't have to put up any money and can immediately start using all those benefits my recruiter promised me. But what nobody told me was just how difficult it was to get one of those loans. I was denied when the bank found out that I was going to lose my income and would not have a full time job to step into, so that was sad :(. So I'm switching gears and looking into a sba loan, more specifically the patriot express loan (up to 500,000 with 4% interest), to buy a building with. I don't know if I buy residential property that I wont be judged by the same standards of a VA loan and run into the whole "I don't have a job" problem, or if it'll be judged by the income earning potential of the property. Or I may just need to step it up a few notches and go for the 5+ unit buildings so the focus comes off of me and onto the financials of the building. We'll see how it goes, if anyone has any experience with this please give me guidence :). thanks for reading