Retired at 40 is starting to look like an attainable goal which blows my mind since it was a joke only a couple of years ago. 

Then once you have that in place, put together an action plan (specific) to get yourself off the couch and on the path to attain your goals.

To each his own, but it will likely take creative thinking and doing what others aren't willing to do to attain success in real estate investing. 

If you think it will be better to "get them out" this will give you ample time to complete said repairs, and then you will have the opportunity to find quality tenants (hopefully before winter!)

-What are the first couple steps in attaining a property?

You have ample to so don't be a motivated buyer and rush into bad deals.

We're certainly not there yet however.To sum up my frustration and the use of that dirty word GREED...I stand behind my use of the word, but a better way of putting it would have been to say that one should really consider their motives in scaling up as much as possible, even after they've attained significant scale.

The tentative numbers are as follows.So, my goals were to attain between the 1.5% and the 2% rule.

@Cody L.Cody , at what point ( number of properties) would you say you had attained when you really started seeing the “ snowball effect” take place .

Is the 1% or 2% rule mostly only attainable if you buy at a low price, foreclosure, or cash, and put work into it?