A couple strategies that could make sense for a younger person without experience could be a live-in flip or a house hack.

I can provide support of checking in on contractors, staging rental properties, walk potential leads to give you an idea of the property in person or what the area is like, meeting with agents, and drafting scope of work for projects. 

People who have service dogs (or horses, as these are the only 2 service animals) that are genuine have no issue disclosing that on the front end and can answer the 2 questions easily - is the animal necessary for a disability, and what specific tasks has the dog (or horse, if you're getting one of those) been trained to perform? 

I personally would only reno to add additional living space and leave the rest as is.

Be sure you are comfortable with the math and know exactly how much you should be getting depending on how the property performs at different levels.  

Personally, if the property is in a bad area, this will give you headaches no matter what.

In my opinion, an in person meetup > an online connection.You may want to consider making a connection here and meeting up for coffee or attending a real estate networking event.Best of luck!

So now I have both my personal residence and a leased property as STRs.Even though I live 3 hours away from my leased STR property, I've built a team that assists with managing it, so I don't have to be there all the time.Here are some key things I've learned:Regulations: Research the specific STR regulations in the state and city where you're looking to buy.

I have been to the 3-day and it is a well run event, by professional persons. 

Hard money lenders focus more on the property’s value rather than your personal debt to income ratio (which traditional banks use) allowing for quicker approval and funding.