Personally, we spent about a year and a half listening to podcasts, reading a bunch of REI books, and talking to experienced investors before we felt the time is right.

About half it was calls I bought. 

We live on one floor and the other half is rented.

Accountants are in such demand, that the best are not even accepting clients half the time.The other problem I see often with accountants on here is that they specialize in larger investors, and have really high prices when you as a smaller investor do not need all the bells and whistles.Another thing I see is folks thinking they need to have a tax professional in their state.

When I moved to the Dallas area, we noticed half of the listings did not even have a fridge, dryers, and washers.

It does not answer every question (are they under/overcharging, do they have egregious cancellation terms, do they have silly rights to sell your property, do they have two and half pages of ticky tack fees, etc.), but something has to go reasonably right for a PM to have 95% occupancy or greater on a several hundred unit portfolio, in my view.

More than half of my purchase price!

The easiest way to do that is to be honest with yourself about your goals, risk tolerance, personal bandwidth and capital. 

Bet you any amount of money...The problems are:- Do they want half down?

For background, I was thinking of using it for half of an investment in a shorter term syndication that I would aim to pay back before the 0% interest promo expires.