Am a professional in the private lending, real estate and investment field with over 15 years of experience.

I professionally manage an HOA.

Become a professional in your work if you want it to supplement a full time job.

Being afraid to reach out and connect with local RE professionals?

For professional fees; given estimates of   Civil- $2,500Structural- $2,500MEP- $3,000Architect-$4000Are these numbers typical?

Its best to decide exactly what direction, what niche of investing that you are most interested in and start talking to your local professionals.

Bring a general contractor with you to the property and let them teach you how to identify problems and opportunities for improvement to bring the property to its full value.Go down to Home Depot and other individual wholesale materials stores and get a list of prices for everything you might use on this flip and every future flip.Go to the professionals desk at Home Depot and ask about discounts for bulk items purchased.It takes practice and a lot of trial and error at first to perfect the techniques to estimate costs.

I'm a professional musician and I can pretty much count to four (over and over) and that's the extent of it... ;)

The degree to which you want to plan ahead and consult professionals depends on your risk tolerance.

US real estate puchased, professionally managed and assambled in REIT portfolios or other secirities backed by physical assets and collecting income produces returns well above prime rate.In a downturn, hold ground, grub, gas, guns, and gold.