That is all it took for me to propel my real estate career.

My opinion may be bias as my real estate career is here in the Philadelphia area. 

I'm applying for various Leasing Administrator and Assistant Property Manager roles, although it's a slight career switch from my normal day job as an executive assistant.

@Austin Fowler is in your area and even has a group of like-minded investors there in SF and many are in IT/Engineering fields. 

We have always managed all of our rentals but 8 month ago I made a career change and it wasn't working. 

I’m new to the real estate field & just recently worked with an out of state client who was going down the same route!

It would be a long, painful, drawn-out learning experience for you, and unless you plan on specializing in assets like your duplex for the next 10-15 years to get your real estate investing career off the ground, I don't think it's worth it.I do speak from some experience here, Marlia.In 2017, I bought a duplex that was a converted from a big old single-family.I bought the duplex for $5000 at the county sheriff's sale.

You will at least 2x your income on the other side and will need to do much less searching because you have connections in the field to get the other side rented.One thing I saw in your post that I would avoid is over-research on the growth now (semi-conductor chip factories).

I have this idea floating around to build an extension on the property or a separate ADU and finance it myself prior to refinancing, but that might be a bold move this early on in my REI career. 

You may need to get those values from an expert in the field so you have good grounds for the value claimed on the deposit.