A few "Starting off" questions

[Jacob Shafer]

Hello! I have been reading this forum with pretty much every spare moment I have had since this weekend when my fiance led me to it. I think I've become a little obsessed with this idea as I can really see the long term potential here, and I have been absolutely dying for a way out of my current job so I can focus wholly on school. With that being said, there are some (a lot of) questions I haven't been able to answer from the blogs, forum posts, and podcasts but here are the first few burning ones to me.

I have been leaning towards renting out homes as I feel the most comfortable with this aspect of real estate right now.

1. Is a realtor who I need to talk to first in order to start finding some properties? I have done a lot of looking around on Trulia, Zillow, Redfin, etc. but with as little experience as I have I just feel like I'd be taking a shot in the dark no matter what I picked - would a realtor help with this or is that just how it goes?

2. I understand I need to get a lender for the mortgage, and to get that I need to get some cash together in order to put up a down payment. I have a little cash saved up, but the majority of my family is very business oriented and I know if I came to them with a legitimate business plan I could probably get at least enough cash to make a decent down payment. What I don't understand is this: At what point do I go to find a lender for the mortgage? Or rather at what point do I need to have cash in my hand or a loan set up on deck? After making an offer on a property? Before making an offer? Before going to even look at properties? I know this seems like a basic question, but I keep reading about people purchasing these homes with investor's money but I don't read about at which point both parties are locked into the deal and money actually exchanges hands.

3. After buying my first property and assuming I have begun to turn a profit, how do I go about getting another loan for another property afterwards? Won't lenders be leery of giving more money to a person who is showing that they are already in debt? I don't feel like I could just go to a lender and be like "Yeah, trust me I'm making money on that other mortgage, give me some more money".

Thank you all in advance!