Once the work was complete, I refinanced to pay off the hard money loan and held the property as a long-term asset.This duplex also marked the start of my short-term rental journey—we ran our first Airbnb from one of the apartments before scaling to bigger projects.

As you start you will want to take into consideration that many owners and hosts use more than just AirBNb to host their properties.  

Hey all,My name is Tony, I'm 35, just started actively pursuing financial independence and have been really hammering away at learning everything I can.

What I find to be most valuable: Ease of use, cost-savings and efficiency and here's what I mean: If using an interior designer to furnish your rental, they will hand you a list of supplies + furniture to buy and what I was able to do with Minoan is upload that list as a CSV file and then they come back with a quote of all of the items they can fulfill along with their respective discount. 

Many people choose NOT to have this, because the administrator will then vet every investment you make to ensure you do not invalidate your IRA.Invalidating your IRA means that you've done a prohibited transaction and the entire account is then deemed as distributed to you.If you don't want checkbook control, then I recommend a plan administrator such as Equity Trust - www.trustetc.comIf you are sure that you're aware of all the rules around prohibited transactions and disqualified people (who you can and can't do business with), then a plan administrator like Sense Financial would be a good place to start talking.  

Start by reading the Ultimate Real Estate Investing Guide: https://www.biggerpockets.com/guides/ultimate-real-estate-investing-guide/introduction2.

I started this company because I want to be a source for people and be that stepping stone for people who want a better life.

Any city that I'm looking to invest in I always start by looking at population growth.

While we were onboarding the property to the system and trying to figure out the automated sprinklers, he was out there every day watering the lawn by hand, stopping the buck and taking personal responsibility. 

I never took action and started doing deals.