If investing locally, then managing it yourself is the best way to learn and see if owning property is right for you.

Ask for help here if you need it.

Does a tech firm really need to pay a CA located cpu engineer $300kyr when have national reach of hundreds/thousands equally qualified happy to do it for $200k....... 

AND the side you live on you can rent out a room or two depending on the number of rooms in your duplex or you have the option to maintain your privacy and sanity and keep it to yourself.  

Those who do pump out the dividends, don't appreciate anywhere near that. 

In order to get there it would be good if you could keep feeding cashflow proceeds back into acquisitions, on top of your continued W2.Speaking from experience, you can manage probably 30-50 units yourself nights and weekends before you really need to hire someone.

Do you even know why investors create an LLC, or multiple LLCs?

I then went to the bank and mortgaged it for the same $30k at 8.5% over 20 years.

It depends on your financial strength, the quality of the property, how many properties you own, etc.I like to start with one significant expense and three months of vacancy.

We do about 20-25/yr so financially it makes sense.