Most of the tenants do not have a smart phone and or internet banking to be able to adapt to electronic payments so as much as I would like to automate that aspect it’s just not a reality for my rentals.

Look ...The tree will never become reality if you don’t plant the seed .

Am I being too conservative in my estimations, or is this the reality for my area?

Of course, in reality, cash depreciates too.

The time specified in the contract was never respected, not the construction set I sent, but the results were going OK, and I was dealing with it, trying to finish.Suddenly The guy disappeared, He didn't reply any or my emails text or calls, even I was following through pictures, some things he said were done, are in reality not done.By mistake the kitchen cabinets and backslash were removed when the construction plans I sent was specified just to paint them, and I'm thinking they probably demolished it by mistake adding a big expense. 

In reality, don't you have to recover the total amount of current cash spent from the cash flow before you can say you are ahead?

It'll more or less be treated as self employment with the lesser of the average of the most recent two tax years over 24 months or YTD earnings over N completed months in the year, with one-off exceptions to the latter for industries known to be seasonal.... those reality TV Alaska fishermen making $100k in 2 months of work can get mortgages, and real estate agents can get mortgages in February even though their YTD is often $0. :)Start getting a detailed list of employer start/end dates together along with all W2s/1099s.

Odie, I agree that you can't fit buying notes into an arbitrary timeline but it's a tangible goal for me and since then, I've been enjoying learning about notes and seeing how my world of brokerage and investing could converge into a reality without "tenants, toilets, and trash!"  

Is it fairly rare yeah will it creep up in value over the years yeah but the reality is the real estate market offers a much more lucrative opportunity.

The reality is that it is difficult and rare that someone with no experience can pull it off and have equity in the deal when it's all done.