We're in the saving phase and we're about 1/2 way to having a nest egg of 6 months of expenses.

Our systems are good (there is always room for improvement, that Ill concede to).I do agree with your philosophy of having ones cake and eating it too... the day job is good, and Ill keep it... for awhile anyway.

When a contractor "screws you over" usually it's because he bit off more than he could chew and is too prideful to acknowledge it and also isn't good with managing money to be able to eat the cost.

How do I find an accountant that won't eat all of our profits?

I generally have 5-10 deals going on at a time, which eats up a lot of capital. 

I had an existing portfolio producing about what I needed to live on along with a comfortable nest egg to invest and live on if need be. 

I'm anticipating I'll be eating the cost.

That 20% down eats up a good chunk of my planned initial outlay.

Once i resigned, i took the past 3-4 months traveling Europe and SEA with my wife (but honestly thinking about real estate and listening to the BiggerPockets podcast aside from eating) before moving to Seattle.I’ve been listening to the BP podcast for over 2yrs now and am finally moving forward to taking the first step in real estate investing.

My first time analyzing a condo/townhome, and it seems the HOA eats up all the cash flow, so now sure if I'm just not finding the right property for it to work or if I'm missing something.