Seeking some guidance!

[Jason Horton]

Hi, I'm Jason from Dallas Tx originally from south Florida, I'll be 30 years old in 2 days 09/09 and my dream is to build a large portfolio of rental properties. I recently completed a professional home inspector training course from AHIT at University of Arlington Texas, because I was just ignorant to what a home actually was.. I've lived in a SFH my whole life and didn't know what it actually was. So if I plan to acquire some rental properties I better know what I'm looking at haha. Right now I know a lot and I'm glad I took the course. But the things I don't know is how to be a good investor or how to generate leads or what contract to use or how this business even works... I'm very early in the process and could use some direction. Right now I'm asking questions and googling the answers, which can take a long time and I may never ask the right questions. So if anyone wants to help me make my first deal I'd be very appreciative!

Things I have done so far
-read many posts on biggerpockets

-test drove an area I'm interested in, looking for abandoned homes. I found 3 and looked the owners up, they're all 80+ living out of state and according to public records the taxes are being paid.

-researched list services to acquire leads and mass mailing services. I thought the ideas Seth Williams ep #39 were really interesting.

-researched and calling today tax offices to acquire a tax default list. I figured this is the best place to start and while I wait for responses continue to research my area.

Things I haven't done yet

-learned the buying process

-read and understand the contracts

-find a good contractor

-find a hard money lender

-figured out what I don't know

Thanks for taking the time to read my post, if you have any suggestions on reading material that would be awesome :). Right now I'm going to try and find our what contract I need and how the buying process works.