For those of you who may not have a clue about real estate investing or may have come across this page by Googling my name here is a very brief overview. Hopefully I can answer the "Just what do you do anyway?" question. I am a Multi-Family investor. Basically what this means is that I typically look for duplexes, triplexes, etc. My long term objective is to obtain an apartment complex of 100 units or so. I personally will not go into detail about the basics of real estate investment. Instead, I will point you in the direction of what I feel is an invaluable tool:

The BiggerPockets Ultimate Beginner's Guild to Real Estate Investing

The guys over at BiggerPockets have done an excellent job of taking the brand new investor step by step through what it means to be a real estate investor. I would be doing you a disservice if I did not share this resource with you. So have a look and tell them Troy sent you.