For the few that understand this niche it can be extremely lucrative.Takes less money, less time and hassle, and there’s little competition.

If you're not already extremely well connected, buy some index funds (or the next Nvidia - maybe the current Nvidia still? 

I would also tell you to be extremely careful when doing contracts with builders. 

If that's not the monthly income, you are arriving at your cap rate by using incorrect expense ratios/expense figures and/or the property benefits from an extremely favorable tax abatement which skews the operating costs.

If you can buy something habitable, and rehab it over time while you live there, that could be a home run of an investment when you look at your return on investment, especially if you house hack.Sure you may leave cash in the deal, but if you buy right, it could still be an extremely profitable and low-barrier to entry way to get into real estate.

@Kieron Osullivan That was EXTREMELY helpful, thank you so much.

Overall, the setup and funding process was extremely straight-forward and the customer service was great.  

We have a savings account where we split up into different buckets (from our w2 and passive income) and one bucket is for real estate and when we have enough to acquire another asset we will consider it.I am not a fan of borrowing 100% of the transaction costs including closing costs as it will be extremely difficult to make money many times on those types of deals.

The current owners have extremely low occupancy and are open to selling.

Over the last (3) years I have seen some extreme cases of expedited equity where an investor buys an older home or "Ugly Inventory" and then bats clean up on the ARV in 12 months.To give you an example I helped an investor refinance her home in 2023 pull cash out to buy a $65K home all cash.