Before you get involved, consider your goals and motivations. Do you want to break into real estate because you've heard that it offers quick profits with little effort? If that's the case, you may need to rethink your attitude. If investing in real estate were an easy job with instant payoffs, everyone would be doing it. Most of the people who recommend those quickie (and sometimes questionable) methods make their income from selling their books and tapes, not from working in real estate.

Dealing in real estate is hard work that requires a great deal of research before you even think of making an offer. The offer itself must be crafted carefully in order to protect your interests. Provisions must be inserted that allow you to back out with no penalties if certain conditions are not met — and you won't know what provisions to request unless you've done your homework.

After an offer is accepted, the task of getting the transaction to the closing table. That journey can be filled with an array of problems:

• The appraisal might come back low.

• An inspection could uncover structural problems that you're not willing to deal with.

• The level of radon gas might be high, requiring a mitigation system to lower it.

• Your lender might not approve the loan.

There are very few trouble-free transactions, so be prepared to deal with stressful situations, no matter what type of real-estate investments you choose. Before you get started, take some time to analyze yourself and your motivations. Going through that process will help you determine exactly where you fit in the world of real-estate investments.