My husband and I both work stable W-2 jobs (he’s in trucking), and our goal is to eventually transition to real estate full-time.

Increase Your Cost Basis: Document and include the costs of significant improvements made to the property in your cost basis.

Anything less than that is way too much work for what you're getting back, because flipping isn't investing it's a job.

Balancing two full-time jobs while planning to invest in real estate shows incredible dedication.

The other issue I ran into is contractor took on other jobs during the day and did renovations at night - didn’t go over well with neighbors.

I suspect you do a good job on the tenant screening side of things. 

@Luis Puente Becoming a Real Estate agent is a full time job if you want to be successful.

Awesome job and good deal!

Often times, it's the W2 job that creates the lendability that you need to get going and keep going.

Hey Dave, since I have mortgages on these properties, would it make sense to bring cash to the exchange to cover the mortgage amount (or pay off the mortgage before doing the 1031) and improve the cash flow for the newly acquired property?