Stoked to check out a local meeting as soon as I can, and I'll hold off the real estate license until I have time to devote to a classroom course- which will undoubtedly be a better product all told.Stoked to be a part of the community!

But I've decided that owning and running apartments is one of the few things (if not the only thing) that's ever actually, genuinely sounded both interesting and profitable to me, and I would love to devote my time and energy into starting a company and building it up to something significant.I like the idea of being able to do this in another state as well, but one step at a time. 

The idea of building a REI portfolio in our desired retirement location makes a lot of sense, from the perspective of being able to tackle the PM once I retire from the military and have more time to devote to RE.

@Steve Rozenberg I think the answer is: it depends... how much money you have to invest, what's your expertise in, what's your risk level (most of it comes down to risk vs reward), how much time can you devote to the investing business, who are your partners, at what point you enter the market, are you generating active or passive income, etc...You need to provide about your specific case to get a more specific response.

I don't currently have an accountant; I have been a devoted Turbo Tax user for over 15 yrs.

At that point, we'll have a better idea of what to hold and what to flip and how where we want to devote our resources.

As for passive vs active, well, I could devote a few hours a week to it, for research, etc.

A deal like this will probably need alot of time devoted to it to make sure it's operating as it should.  

I have found it best to find an excellent real estate agent who believes that your criteria is realistic and is willing to devote significant time to helping you.

I am looking at starting a thread devoted to people who have experience using one of the big hedge fund landlord lenders.