@Chris Seveney  Good mourning Chris thank you so much for this response. what are 3 really good books I can buy for Commericial Real Estate investing (I have the millionaire Real Estate investor by Gary Keller), I've also looked at some CRE courses and I noticed some of them are asking for a bunch of money which kind of sketches me out, and about the military I was firstly thinking of  buying a 4 unit property and live in one of them then buy another a couple then with that I can buy a bigger property that's the idea I had in my mind because my father kept on telling me how CRE is only for rich people and it's risky but that's what I want too do .

I live in El Paso, TX and would like to invest close to home first before venturing in long-distance.

Hey @Spencer Cuello, so you will find most of us aren't fans of arbitrage.I see you listed NYC so you know that you can't do a STR in the city unless you live there.IE: You need to be onsite, living in the same unit you are going to rent.As per usual...

Gutted the kitchen and dining/living room area.

@Andrew Katz, if you will be living in your next house hack, you should investigate a conventional loan instead of hard money.

In my area these are rare so they are difficult to set market rent, and I imagine get a lot of wear and tear with a lot of occupants living there. 

I'm more interested in purchasing 10 homes to have fully paid off by the time I retire, as I'm not living on the cash flow w/ current job. 

On the flip side, if you've got a bunch of Section 8 tenants living in a building that's in a neighborhood where a lot of the tenant base has good jobs, high credit scores, and are generally reliable people, you've got the most risky tenants in that tenant base and that ain't what ya want.

Hopefully, not an expensive tenant or Fair Housing lawsuit.100% of what @Travis Biziorek states is true, but he left out a key fact - he lived in the Detroit area when he started investing here, so was able to self-manage and meet everyone he had to hire face-to-face.

Our lot is fenced in and we cannot see where he lives but close enough to be of concern, but we want to stay in the same town until the kids are finished school.So, my question is this, would it make sense to rent our home (roughly $2300-2500/mo. as per real-estate agent claims), with the stipulation that the garage is used for my business AND buy a home nearby?