Newbie needs advice on best strategy to grow portfolio

[Danielle Leo]

Hi Everyone, I'm a beginner in RE investing from Montreal, Canada. I'm very excited to have found this community of like minded people! 

I started a few years ago with two small condos that didn't need a lot of management (and also didn't generate a lot of return). Then about two years ago I purchased my first triplex in a good neighborhood. Over two years I increased total rental income by $12k a year through renovation and replacing tenants, and the triplex appreciated by 1/3 in a hot seller's market. I absolutely loved the process but also realized how exhausting and time consuming it would be to do everything by myself while holding onto a full time job. Now I'm ready to make my next multi-family investment, but I'm struggling to figure out the best strategy if I want to grow my portfolio in a healthy and sustainable way that doesn't impede my work and personal life. 

A bit of background information: my and my husband are both young professionals holding busy corporate/business jobs with good income. We have enough liquidity (through HELOC and refinancing) to purchase another multi-family with the price range of ~$1.5M, so approximately a 6-12 door property in my city, depends on the area. The only strategy I'm familiar with is: buy a property with sub-par conditions and price-->clean up and renovate-->charge higher rents to new tenants-->buy new property and repeat. However, the time, cash, and energy that I spend on the reno projects are real bottleneck for me. I've worked with several contractors and they are either too expensive (the good ones) or not quality enough (the cheap ones). Even if I outsource the labor, I still find myself spend too much time doing the design, shopping for materials, and managing the schedule of several sub-contractors (removing current tenants is another pain in the neck, both time-wise and emotion-wise). My other option is to buy something off flippers that's already renovated and ready to rent, but most often the prices are already jacked up and the appreciation potential is limited. It's also difficult to find a good property manager that can manage the on-going maintenance and tenants turnover.

So my question is: is there an optimal strategy to quickly grow my portfolio if I can't, or am not willing to, devote too much time in the renovation and maintenance process? My goal is to grow somewhere between 6-12 doors per year, whichever my finance allows, and optimize revenue. But I don't see how it's feasible if I have to repeat the process above every year. 

Any suggestions and advice is much appreciated!