Hi @Essien , Congratulations on your mile stone. 10 years ago I was in your shoes in Lynnwood, Trying to figure all of that out myself as well.

@Russell Brazil Congrats on this milestone. 

It means you will need money down for purchase (and closing costs) money to service the loan while you work towards your exit strategy, money to start the rehab until you at least the first draw (since our rehab is available at each milestone in arrears) and money for cost over-runs, miscalculations and when that exit strategy of yours doesn't quite pan out as optimistically as you hoped.Another thing that might be useful to do is to network and for instance line up someone who is experienced to perhaps look over your calculations.

A good free meal is great to show you appreciate their current work and effort, but do not expect it to completely change how much they’re getting done in a day.Setup a milestone payment schedule with clear bonuses that they can achieve if they beat those schedule milestones at the same level of quality.

This issue has actually evolved into one of the best milestones in my real estate career so far: I found and hired an excellent property manager!

If you are rehabbing then presuming the draws are in arrears at each milestone then you need money for at least the first rehab milestone.

For larger projects, I've broken the scope into milestones and awarded bonuses at those points.

Instead of trying for a home run right from the start (i.e. turnkey investment company promising all sorts of things), try starting with buying one property and seeing if you can generate the ROI and hit all the milestones/deliverables you have defined.

So you can see what you have or what you are dealing with at each milestone.

@Markia Dunn To stay focused, keep a task list interdispersed with reasonable milestones.