Instead of spending years learning by trial and error, working with a coach or mentor can allow you to accelerate your learning curve, gain confidence, and achieve your goals faster.

By the time he covered eviction costs, lost rental income, and re-renovated after tenant turnovers, any potential gains were erased.Seven years later, his properties had appreciated to about $130,000 each—a 62% increase on paper.

The West and South posted more modest gains of 6.9% and 0.5%.

I’m planning to start by buying in Buffalo to gain experience and learn the ropes.

Selling gets a tax free gain and allows you to be more liquid; keeping it allows you to have once in a lifetime cheap debt and have that leverage on an appreciating asset. 

Finally, start small, analyze deals, and build a team to guide you as you gain experience.

Is it better to sell, pay off mortgage and capital gains and take the cash to invest in another property or is it better to refi/ETO and take the cash to invest in another property?

Once you start to get people in there to look at project to project, that will give you a baseline then you'll start to gain more knowledge on where you need to be on the pricing/estimates etc.

This may seem counterintuitive but, they are an "insider" to that group and gain a bit of empathy-points.

Notice when I spoke of London STR I used the words "gain control of a property" and NOT "buy a property"????