At some point, when pure cash flow is more important, then looking at a longer buy and hold strategy may make sense.

@Pradeep Roy are you purely wanting appreciation?

Russ - The objective of this forum is purely education, but if you'd like to send me a direct message, I can provide additional information. 

Ben is all about collaboration over pure transactions.

Charleston has a very active REI community and several meetup/networking events each month that are pure gold.

And in general there is a lot of downplaying of risk in the pursuit of pure ROI.None of that is wrong I guess, it's just not my style. 

There are two idea I’m batting around in my head right now to get started on my REI journey – I can do it purely on the investing side and become a private lender or a source of hard money loans to builders/developers (maybe that looks like funding a construction loan collecting interest payments while buying time to better understand the dynamics and build relationships) or I can JV/partner with a builder and get equity (upside on a flip/sale) which would be more hands on.Curious what ya’ll input, what you think is the best route for me to dip my toes into REI given my aforementioned situation and current market.

@Rick Albert assuming that in your situation you and your investor are owning/managing these as purely investments and thus holding everything via a partnership operating agreement?  

House hack or pure investment?

This will demonstrate how the property performs as a pure rental, and it forces you to save.