[_neil]

I've been looking at this as well and I also have very little idea what I'm doing. I found a spreadsheet on Bigger Pockets that helps evaluate properties as rental investments by plugging in some numbers. Apart from that, I just have some alerts set up on Redfin and a general idea of what parts of my city would probably attract good tenants.

But I've seen enough stories about nightmare situations that I'd rather cover all my bases before jumping in.

[robinhoode]

Nice to see someone name drop Bigger Pockets! That was my first big project as a Rails developer.

[ethbro]

If you're interested in real estate investment and willing to do trivial math, I'd recommend Frank Gallinelli's book ( http://www.amazon.com/Every-Estate-Investor-Financial-Measur... ) for the basics.

He comes across as a great guy (heard him interviewed on a podcast before I bought the book), has a really readable style (seriously, it makes real estate financials "light reading"), and generally seems focused on helping people (he was apparently teaching when a publisher approached him to write a book - he told them he wouldn't write the book they wanted because he thought it would be useless, but he would write them a book on what he thought would be most useful).

And absolutely: if you're from a comp-sci background, the real estate math is all trivial plug and chug. But it is worth learning the accepted ways of doing things so you can properly compare and model your properties.

[tylercubell]

Investment property analysis is one of the problems I'm working on in my startup (http://offmarketleads.com). One thing I learned from interviewing the top hard-money lender in Boston is that new investors often don't perform due diligence properly and are ignorant of costs that can make or break a deal. As a value-added service, I'm pulling in data from public records, MLS, and proprietary sources to automate 95% of this grunt work so they can get a more down-to-earth estimate of what a property is really worth and improve their chances of getting financed. However, this is predicated upon finding great deals which is the top pain point I'm solving.

[shahmat]

I'd also highly recommend bigger pockets, it's great for USA information specifically. I'm from canada and I still find it really useful, it has a great community that is very open and helpful!