And, perhaps most importantly, make sure you have access to flexible financing options that can help you adapt to new market conditions.

Alot of unknowns as you don't have the ability to walk the property beforehand, but interesting process, and pretty good deals exist there.While the Trustee Sales are cash purchases, there are many hard money options that can turn over the funds in time for the 24 hour funding required to complete the purchase.If you are interested, let me know and I can go into more detail, as well as make some other suggestions for you to consider. 

I am currently 21 years old and was recently hired with my dream job in Sarasota County (I saw that Sarasota wasn’t an option so I picked the closest.)

Many opt for other investing methods in their SDIRA like private lending, crypto, private equity...anything except collectibles and life insurance.Note that a Solo 401k is exempt from UBIT on leveraged real estate so if you have self employment activity and no full time employees save for you and your spouse you should consider the Solo K as an option. 

There a ton of great DSCR options you can find on the Lenders tab at the top of the page, or connect with an experienced broker who can shop all the best lenders for you and educate you on the best options out there.

We take your info and we let Lenders battle for the deal offering their best options.

Happy to chat...being a local GC takes out a lot of the risk of the biggest variable for most investors (unpredictable rehab costs) and also allows you to consider more options than the average investor, with your rehab costs being significantly lower.

I think I will look into the tax professional option and hopefully have one on my team year round for advice. 

There's ALWAYS options out there but you're going to have to go around and do most of the work yourself.

Your mentor’s advice about starting with a rental property is solid, and a duplex could be a great option for house hacking.