Your time is best spent producing the revenue that allows you to invest in the first place.That includes using local agents you meet and feel are a good fit for you, property managers, possibly buying completed properties like the one you posted here, and outsourcing as much of the process as you can as you get started. 

This won't be our first time living in Sac but our first time doing so with a keen eye on real estate. 

., so you can't get financing on a condotel most of the time.

Then there's paint....for a long time, it was shades of brown/tan/beige, then went to gray (around 2015 as I recall, then back to the brown shades.I like the herringbone, maybe we will stop seeing Subway tile everywhere for a while...?

Travel time to and from each showing counts.

You can ask piliminary questions to see if an applicant is worth your time too if you don't want applicants always filling out an application before a tour. 

The health department doesn't limit the size of the approval in order to be difficult; they do so to ensure safety and sanitation of the occupants of the house and its neighbors.I see this all of the time in the Smokies.

I have a job that also affords me a lot of spare time in my schedule and I'm looking to use that time to begin/continue/grow a real estate portfolio.

I guess it can save you some time managing, for example one tax bill, one insurance bill. 

The city of chicago does not come out every time to read the meter for the water bill so they produce an estimate.