Starting with single-family homes or a duplex is a wise choice.

Understanding financial markets, economic principles, and investment analysis will be very beneficial, especially with property valuation, investment analysis, and financial management.

I believe these can be very beneficial for a number of reasons especially if you are creative in how you utilize them for other than just swiping cards.

If you have little or no experience than a General contractor may be a good choice. 

If/when you get a bad/young/ahole Inspector, you have little choice but to go over their heads...usually the Head Building Inspector will do, but once I had to call the City Manager.Generally speaking, an Inspector cannot look at anything except the items that are on that specific permit and are due to be inspected that day...

I would talk to a Mortgage Broker on different loan types that would be beneficial.

To allow owners to in effect build beyond what was permitted by the existing zoning basically means no one gets a choice of the density of their community.  

You are simply reacting to their CHOICE to not pay rent timely when you take proactive action to break the lease, request they move, or evict.

I got burnt many times, thats why I don't stress anymore about making quality choices. 

This really helps me build the back up plans as I enter negotiations and try to make this transaction beneficial for both sides.