And when there are bumps in the road, and believe us, there will be, ask for help, don't just give up. If you just give up, you'll never know what you could have accomplished. Think of the bumps as challenges, and learn from the bumps rather than just giving up. Nothing comes easy. You are not going to be a millionaire by next week (unless you win the lottery), it is not going to work on auto pilot, you need to stoke it and help it grow.
So what's an investor to do, especially an investor who's really not a professional? For one thing, find a reliable method of gaining information. One that I like is a trend analysis approach that objectifies market behavior. This type of approach is more kinetic in that it doesn't rely on past performance-it relies on past and present performance to indicate a "trend" toward future performance. While that's not infallible in any sense of the word, it is a broader range of information than most guides.
Step 3 is to learn about supply, especially in the preconstruction marketplace. In some areas, there are very few projects on the books and in others, there are 15,000+ units expected to emerge within 1 zipcode, in 1 year. Same is true for investing in houses. In you are competing with a bunch of new houses that are coming on-line, then rapid price escalation may be limited. For most savvy investors, they like to see lots of demand with very little supply which is nothing more than common sense.