After your personnel finances are in good standings and you have the required funds to allow for you to purchase your first *great* deal you have set yourself up for success and you will find as you go along and as you learn more and more you will shake your head at some of the different ways people are making money off of the inexperience and sometime naïve investors.

If I don't put the time, effort, risk and energy into real estate because of my fears, inexperience and financial road blocks, I will never gain the rewards.

That being said, I am telling you from an inexperience investor, that you have several "rules of thumb" to helpyou to go further on an investment.

That's just out of my range both in experience and cash.

Yea I get what you mean.That's why I was going to see if they've done any repairs or know the repairs that need to be done firstIf it's something that I'll have to gut-out I won't do it just because of my inexperience.

You inexperience in selling homes, coupled with the emotional involvement of selling on you will consistently cost you much more than the standard commission rate that a good listing agent gets.

I've also seen quite a few doctors be nearly scammed due to their inexperience in real estate but taking advice from pitches from the country club set.

You've succinctly described my intuition/core belief, but it would be nice to hear that it has some basis in experience.

I have done some IRR calcs, but its a bit tough for me to trust them due to my relative inexperience and assumptions. 

Overall, I agree with all he says based on what I can see (and my inexperience), but I don't really know how to make my home more marketable (hence, the reason to hire an agent).