My goal is to have financial freedom so I can eventually quit my 9-5 job and use my time to spend with family and do things that excite me.

Prioritize your financial stability.

Prepare financially by saving for down payments, improving your credit score, and setting aside emergency reserves.

Unfortunately, unless you see the underlying financials as well as supporting data for those financials, you do not know whether there actually was cash from operations to pay your distribution or not. 

I think real estate is very forgiving (1) over the LONG term and (2) if you're well capitalized / in a strong financial position. 

Yeah make sure to thoroughly conduct background checks on private institutions you lend from.

That had even a passing resemblance to tax returns or financial statements4.

A STR is a completely different animal in my opinion, in that it requires more work and much more compromise, but financially is worth the effort. 

I believes that well-planned real estate investments can open the door to financial freedom and generational wealth.Welcome!

I originally wanted to do a quad but financially I know I can’t fund a project that large, unfortunately.