Save your cash, learn the skill and techniques and learn you market.

I'd saying following your experience and scaling off of your flips would make the most sense as you can use skills/knowledge you've already cultivated.

In the current market investors may need to alter their expectations, tweak their strategies, and/or expand their knowledge and skills to keep them on the path to their goals.

If you have time to complete projects in your home, practice those skills and keep a log of how much time and cost everything was.  

Separate accounts make tax time easier, showing you as a skilled investor.

I am hoping to like many others build up a good retirement through real estate and are looking for opportunities to learn good practices, soft skills and gain confidence and build repeatable systems that can scale. 

You may not be able to pull out your money on the refinance, but it will enable you to learn the skills needed to do a BRRRR with hard money later on in your career.

They are two distinct skill sets.Property managers focus on customer experience, while asset managers are fiduciaries to the investors. 

Flipping and BRRR are similar and require a similar skill set.   

You will need technical skills and software to manage from afar, as if you're local.