I heard it again today on the local consumer advice radio show. Some poor soul had fallen under the spell of a get-rich-quick real estate guru who promised wealth beyond the dreams of avarice in a matter of weeks.

The only catch? The listener needed to put up $15,000 for the weeklong super seminar and the one-year personal mentoring from the pitchman.

Fifteen thousand dollars? "Are you kidding?" I shouted at the radio, stunned at the cost of the seminar.

I thought to myself that I had personally bought entire houses for less than $15,000, although it was more than a few years ago.

In any case, I was amazed that anyone would consider paying that much in a field where some of the best advice you can get is relatively inexpensive.

That got me thinking what I would recommend to someone who might ask me what steps they could take to learn about investing in residential real estate in a safe manner.

Here are some ideas that won't cost you $15,000:

• Read "The Millionaire Next Door" by Tom Stanley and William Danko. About $10. This book does a great job of separating the fact from the fiction of financially successful people, and should be required reading for anyone who thinks they might want to invest in anything. The bottom line is that many people who seem wealthy are actually one paycheck away from financial disaster because they consume more than they earn on a regular basis. In contrast, it points out that many Americans live a modest lifestyle but have accumulated substantial net worth, even though you may not be able to see it in the car they drive or the clothes they wear.

• Consider becoming licensed as a real estate salesperson. In-class pre-license training, about $350 for 75 hours of training. You certainly don't need to be licensed to be a successful investor, but the pre-license training does a couple of important things for you. First, you have to learn a lot about the home selling and renting business. Second, you are exposed to a lot of people already investing in real estate.

• Read "Creating Wealth" by Robert Allen. About $10. This book outlines a strategy of creative financing of real estate through win-win real estate transactions. I am not advocating everything he says here, but Allen gives a fairly realistic picture of the real estate world as it was prior to the current downturn. Why would I recommend a book not reflective of the current market? Because the current market is about as bad as it can get short of a depression, and I don't think anyone believes we are headed in that direction. In fact, I believe we are already moving toward an improvement in the residential market, and that neither a strong buyer's market nor a strong seller's market is representative of a steady market. Instead, I believe we are headed for a market in which there is equilibrium between buyers and sellers, and competition keeps prices reasonable. In such a world, builders build more affordable homes and fewer multimillion-dollar mansions.

• Read "Creating Wealth One House at a Time" by John Schaub. About $15. This book was written by a regular guy from Sarasota, Fla., who found out that some sellers need to sell quickly for whatever reason and that they sometimes are willing to be flexible on their price or their terms or both. He also found out that good tenants will stay in your rental house a long time if you take good care of them.

I have personally followed Schaub's advice for many years, and have found it to be both practical and doable. His advice is to keep your day job, then find a way to buy one good, solid rental property a year. Then get it ready and place it into rental service before you do anything else. This way you are digesting what you swallow before you bite off more. It's good advice.

• Finally, visit some local real estate offices and talk to the local brokers. Ask them if there is anyone in their office who has specialized in investing in rental houses over the years, and if so, could you buy them lunch?

Yes, it may cost you the price of lunch for two, but look at it this way: You've already saved almost $15,000.

Find more articles by John Adams online at ajchomefinder.com.