No Job But Good Credit
This is my first time on this site thanks to a good friend who recommended it. I have read a lot about real estate over the years but never had the courage to go for it because I'm a stay at home mom. Because my husband does not have the same passion it's been difficult to get the financial support i need. I can not use his credit at this time because he has a mortgage ( my name is not on it), and it appears his credit it not favorable, lots of late payments. Can someone tell me what I can do to get started before going for the hard lender. 
Start out learning you market. Look at houses that are for sale, learn the prices, learn what sells.
The deal drives everything else. Find the right deal and the rest of the pieces will come together.
You might want to check if there is a local REI club.
Thank you for the info on REI, I did check it out for my area and will call a few. I think I need clarify that I not only have a passion for real estate, I took a real estate course and passed. I have not taken my licensing exam because that is not my interest. I took the course for the information. My instructor told me about no doc. But is that really easy to do.
Just timid in this area. :-x
No, no docs are not easy to do. Nothing in Real estate is easy to do. Unless you compare it to having a real job.
If I lease to purchase a piece of property I would need to get a loan in order to pay the owner off. So where is my option in this area? I'm not familiar with subject to, but what I do know it's too risky for me.
You have an inaccurate picture of what lease option investing is. In a nutshell, you find motivated sellers (people who have already bought another house, people with no equity, people who need to move quickly, etc.). You offer to take over their mortgage payments. You do this by finding a tenant buyer to live in the house and pay rent to you (this is known as a sandwich lease--the seller and your tenant buyer are the bread, and you are cheese!). You give yourself 30 days to find a tenant buyer. You can make your offer contingent on finding a tenant buyer, so there is no risk to you. You then collect a non-refundable option consideration from your tenant buyer (usually 3-5% of the purchase price of the house), then they pay you rent every month. I would recommend going to the lease option forum and learning more.
There is also a subject-to forum here. There are some similarities between subject-to investing and lease option investing. The main difference is that subject to gives you more control because you are actually buying the house.
Having gone to real estate agent classes, you may be spooked by some of these things because real estate agents are only taught conventional techniques.
Wholesaling is where you put a property under contract, then assign it to someone else before the closing date.
All types of investing have some risk. I have a tough time with that myself, but you can't completely escape risk. There are a lot of things you can do to minimize your risks. Study these forums and learn everything you can about the different types of investing.
You'll be glad you did.
Candace
WOW! Thanks a lot for the education. I'm going for a walk to clear my head. You are correct, I am only in the conventional mind set.