The majority of buyers appreciate the expertise that a good agent provides (local market knowledge that can only be gained by being active in the market buying and selling all the time, looking at most of the new listings in person or at least online daily, a background in or at least understanding of building construction, relationships within the network of professionals in the industry doing deals, vendor referrals, legal protection through E&O insurance and keeping up with constant changes in approved contracts and required disclosures and forms, negotiating skills (the average person is terrible at negotiating directly and has no desire to, I find Americans are uniquely averse to negotiating and prefer to outsource it but I digress), etc.).

Your desire for control and liquidity are likely the two biggest assessments you need to make first, as this will start to narrow down your choices very quickly.

They are still insecure to those of us who know what they are doing & have a desire to steal bitcoins.

Study financing, Study Wholesaling (if that is something you desire to attack), listen to Podcast.If your FICO is 640 ish, in 6 months you can be around 670-690 by aggressively paying down debt and getting a bit frugal for those months.

Just make sure you try to househack in a desirable area where people will pay a high amount per bedroom. 

Some use them as rentals.the biggest reason for doing things this way is a traditional bank won’t loan on  property that won’t appraise at their desired price.

In my ideal scenario, I would do some more entry level projects to start off while I learn the ins and outs, but my goal would be to eventually work on more luxury flips - larger scaled projects in more desirable neighborhoods (though fewer and farther between).  

If your chosen market requires 2 or 3 flights with layovers, you probably won’t have the time or desire to get on the ground as often as you like.

If you desire to get it by all means go for it - knowledge is power - but thats knowledge you pay for that may or may not pay off for you.  

STR regulations are getting increasingly punitive in many desirable places North America and this is probably going to get worse because of the shortage of long-term rentals and the increasing long-term rents.