Everyone generally understands that as a real estate investor, the concept is to let someone else's rent payments pay for your mortgage and to hopefully come out with a positive cash flow at the end of the month.
      There are plenty of ways to get started in real estate investing. Here are some one-line descriptions of how to do it including the pros and cons of each alternative.
      Foreclosure
      How it works: Purchase the property at a courthouse auction -- hopefully for less than it's worth. Fix it up, sell it or rent it out.
      Pros: This is a common sense approach to getting started in real estate investing. If you can get the property for a wholesale price and then rent it out for more than your mortgage, you're on your way to building wealth one month at a time.
      Cons: You get into the property and find out it has major problems costing a lot more than you'll ever recover. Ever heard of concrete being flushed down the drain (usually out of spite from the former owner)? It means having to remove all the

     If you look at the bank accounts of most first-time buyers the day after settlement, you are likely to find very little in it.
      Yet more than half of first-time buyers -- especially in older areas of the country -- choose older, generally less-expensive houses. Even those who gravitate to newer houses, townhouses especially, tend to defer some of the bells and whistles for financial reasons.
      Still, it doesn't cost all that much to make some changes that personalize a house for the new homeowner.
      Painting is the most popular improvement by first-timers. Of course, that can be motivated more by taste than by necessity. A lot of buyers, first-time or otherwise, may buy a house despite the color of the walls, then head to the store as soon as the papers are signed.
      Many first-timers depend heavily on books and the vast supply of how-to television shows for their information. Yet books tend to be too complicated for most, and the TV shows make it look much easier than it really is.
      The TV shows especially are designed to sell home-improvement products. Some of these products may look nice, and even may be something a homeowner might want to consider down the road.
      But, other than painting, the first year or so someone spends in a house is the time to tackle the problems the home inspector has pointed out and the ones