I wanted a house for myself to live in and I had been living with parents for two years to save money.

ACTUAL data is always best. 

My advice would be, if you truly want to learn the business, lease it up, refinance, pull some money out, and go on to the next one.

@Brady Bitter yes, some of us use this technique for temporary money. 

. - We always recommend buying your first rental locally if possible and DIY managing to learn as much as possible before investing OOS.2) Lots of crooks and incompetents in the PMC world:( They both cost you money.- As already stated, you'll have a small portfolio.

(you need to differentiate when a Mark Spain type company is running radio ads to attract business for themselves from it actually helping you out)4) Our TEAM or BROKERAGE has sold "X" homes! 

So yeah, I actually get 2 quotes.

Real estate is easy to get into, but hard to earn a living. 87% of all agents quit within two years because they don't make enough money.

From my understanding, as long as you intend on doing a STR when you close, there are no rules against changing your strategy after closing, especially if you find that something else is more profitable.So in our case, the lender determined an STR would bring in ~$3500/month (with all of their conservative factors), but now that we operate it as a huge 3300 sqft Co-Living property, it actually brings in $7000/month.

The faster you pick it up, the faster money will roll in.