If you choose to use long-term leases instead of month-to-month rental agreements, then you had best have a well crafted "lease break" clause in your lease.You can't create and apply new terms at this juncture.

You either are on a 50/50 split learning the craft or you are at a higher split but the company does little to next to nothing for you as fees are minimal.

Those who are are making the extra intentional effort to continuously learn and improve their craft are who you want managing your assets.

As others have said, bogleheads.org is to stock investments what bp is to RE, so you should definitely skip a financial advisor and learn from there, it is really easy once you grasp the fundamentals.Over the next couple years or so, I would like to start diversifying it and reaching a conservative 25% in RE while I learn what's to learn in this craft, and over the next decade moving to a 50/50 split.Planning to go with buy-and-hold strategy.

I don't know what to put down that will help with the cold cement and will survive being a bedroom/craft room that may include sanding wood furniture.The living room/dining room is a large room with the original wood floors from the 1950's and the dining room was originally the deck so has been carpeted in the past.

Joe Patrick Craft is a realtor who lists a lot of flips, and although I've never worked directly with either of them I think they would be good resources for you.

The food, art, music, craft beverage scenes are all flourishing as well.

You are also wise to keep a close eye on the downsides, as every market has those too ... for a pro investor, though, spotting them is not a question of letting them scare you, but rather crafting and executing a strategy that will max your profits while hedging your downside risks ... good luck, and Bear Down!

Bottom line is that there is opportunity and risk everywhere, no matter where you invest or what you invest in ... your duty as an investor is to craft and execute a strategy that meets your goals and compliments the market environment such that the opportunities are maximized and you are protected to a large degree (or avoid all together) the risks.

You can also always craft your settlement statement to show you paying certain items like the loan costs POC but if you also have a rent credit, taxes, and CAM, for example, coming to you, that has to also be POC (not part of the 1031) so the numbers could net out and you don't have to bring much to the table, if that makes sense.