We are in the woods where we really wanted to create another sort of living space outside of the square footage of the home. 

But I can sort that out other ways as well.- bonus points if I can have a separate business w/o having to pay 2x the cost, but it is what it is.- cost is an issue.

Also with the CC snowballing, I won't be able to make it two years without some other sort of intervention. 

Title might be confusing, I'm asking for help or input on what other people have found success doing, not claiming to have any sort of sound strategy myself!!

Digitize physical receipts for easy storage and use a consistent naming convention for easy sorting - 2024.03.25 Home Depot.Maintain proper records, such as contracts, settlement statements, and promissory notes.Additionally, you can track income and expenses consistently using software or spreadsheets.As you scale, if bookkeeping isn't fun, consider hiring a bookkeeper for a couple hundred bucks per month.

Additionally, some syndicators are mostly in the middle-person role of sorts; partnering with others who do the primary LOI/PSA/operation roles.

Finding some sort of value-add aspect or buying at a discount means you either create or walk into equity, which protects you.

Louis, even buying a property for $2k might be overpaying for it ;-) These properties always need some sort of extensive/gut rehab, so they are not for the faint of heart (or stomach)!

If you or CPA needs a AMA shoot me an email and we’ll get you all sorted.  

Part of my issue was not having a reasonably priced handyman ahead of time and eventually overpaying to just get it done and also inexperience as a manager.With that said, you essentially have two options: very cheap properties in less good areas (you're looking at 100k or less--which you might have trouble getting a good lender for)  or trying to do some sort of house hack (e.g. live in flip, live in rent by the room, multifamily) where you budget will be closer to 200k-300k.Personally, I would not look at real estate until you are maxing out your 401k and IRA, but lots of folks have done significantly better with real estate than stocks and would think I'm crazy for suggesting this.