( I just moved to SC from living in Dallas for 20+ years ) I definitely know a lot of fire fighters that run whole other businesses on their off days - so I think you can do it especially if your interested in making it happen - its going to be pretty intense though if you want to build up your real estate business - you just need to really leverage your relationships you have already built in your community - which I would think would be easy as a firefighter.

Image if I had 30, just 3 x those numbers.Directly investing in a turnkey rental or small MFH is a good way to start to learn and build up the war chest to go into my scaleable investments such as private placement syndications.

I'd consider partnering up with someone and offering management, lead generation, cleaning, turning, renos, etc for either free or a low rate to understand the game and build up that network.

Hey Darvin, I like to keep at least 9 months of PITI reserves and then assuming the property is cash flowing I'll let the cash flow accumulate to build up the maintenance and capex reserves, that way I don't need to save up that money prior to actually pulling trigger on a new property!

The longer you wait to get in, the harder it is to build up your portfolio.

We don't build up high population density compared to many other states.  

and I have been analyzing properties and making bids but I keep getting outbid (people have too much money in this market, lol).My current plan is to flip houses to build up money so I can get into BRRRRing on my own. 

You need to build up your knowledge base and experience before even considering building a team because if you try to attract agents, contractors, etc. before you know much, they won't want to work with you.

If you cash out refi and use it for a down payment, the game is over after 2 deals until you build up enough equity to jump back in.

Go rent a house and then dont pay rent , You will build up a large down payment .