With that comes much more competition, particularly from larger, more established RE investment companies and funds.

However, not many people are eager to do that.Once you’ve established your budget and your level of comfort with sacrifices, buy the best deal in your market.

Industrial is great too, long term, but a little overpriced still for now. or sell, pay the taxes, invest in VOO, get 8-10% next 30 years, or invest in REITs, get 10-12% next 30 yearsor buy MUNIs, i'm getting 5% tax free, which is an effective yield of  7.94% for part of my emergency fundIf you die 1 day , 1 yr, 1 decade after you sign an Annuity, they keep all your money, your wife/kids get nothing, unless you add them, but then the returns do go way down and they were low to begin with, Remember the Annuity company is investing in VOO and last 20 years got 13% a year, (long term 8.4% since 1801) they pay you 6 and keep the rest, good luck brother :) There is a lot to unpack in your post and Im not familiar with most of the options you listed so I'll do some homework. 

To be clear, I'm thinking I would do the above for several years while building my portfolio and learning, and then solely focus on my portfolio once I'm established and am generating enough income to live off of.

If you are out of state, I would definitely recommend establishing relationships with contractors, property managers, agents, etc. before you start to make sure you are set up for success. 

Having established relationship will help to get better rates too.

Link isn't working, but I was able to find it here: I was just sharing notes with someone else on these forums about things I look for with syndications, and while there is a lot to look at, the first one is: is this an asset class and business plan you want to invest in.  

Going with the latter and hoping to establish a relationship with the local lender going forward. 

Keyrenter is an established residential property management company with close to 10,000 properties across the country.

If you have no lates in the last 12 months and re-established credit meaning you have atleast 3 tradelines you have made ontime payments on for the last 12-24 months you may be eligible for VA financing with 580 min or lower scores depending on the scenario.Most of the time these type of files with be a total cluster and require 30-40 conditions ranging from letters of explanation, additional documentation, and or other to close.