This book offers a non-traditional approach to a mindset shift that is conducive to producing massive results.The Richest Man in Babylon also isn't real estate specific but reading this book multiple times on your climb up the financial ladder yields different perspectives.

The traditional ROI S&P500 for that amount of money would be fairly similar after accounting for everything.

These may be a better option as they are built for real estate so they are less generic than your traditional project management software like Monday.com 

I have been running some hypothetical use cases and been comparing the returns with more traditional investment assets, and there must be something that I'm doing wrong because it doesn't add up for me.Scenario 1 - 9.5% Yield vs Stock at 6%: 5 year 12k note with 9.5% Yield, this means 60 payments of 252.02 for an end valance of $15,121.2 which gives me an annualized return of 4.73%.

In this arrangement, instead of obtaining a traditional mortgage from a bank, you negotiate directly with the seller to finance the purchase of their property.

But on the other hand, once the money was paid back I wasn't paying interest on it and I could redraw (unlike a traditional mortgage).

Since you have experience with renovations, perhaps offering handyman services or consulting for other property owners could provide some extra cash flow without tying you to a traditional 9-to-5 job.Dealing with discouragement is tough, especially when it feels like the world is against you.

Those real estate agents ONLY work with traditional lenders is why they say that.

Where I mention the 3-5% delta on a second is that is what it will cost you from a traditional bank (for example a HELOC or 2nd mortgage).

Despite the project’s unique nature and impressive traction, securing traditional financing has proven challenging.