Bottom line is, I am very thankful to BP and all the people I’ve met along the way who have helped me on this journey and helped me to understand the power of intelligent real estate investing.Some other time I’ll post on another investment I made that was supposed to be more passive but ended up being very nerve-wracking, and I still don’t have my money back….

There is just not a great answer unless you can examine it closer. 

I'm new enough, the dialog is nerve racking.

I have a W2 person submit to not just examination of the W2; they supply the W2 (or a tax return that shows the W2 amount), recent pay stubs AND employment verification.

I think the first thing you should do is examine where your current deal flow is coming from at look at how you can increase that.

With the 5+ units, you will examine the new net operating income to help in determining the new potential value. 

I think you are doing great and would be interesting in seeing what systems you currently have in place to have gotten to this point, maybe examining those will bring out a flaw.

We had to file plans, and what was the kitchen was called a "bar", and the original examiner turned it down calling our plans all BS.

My nerves are quite something.

To overcome the nerves, I'd suggest listening to a few personal development podcasts, Youtube videos, audiobooks.