However, if you’re not ready to jump in yet, you could spend the next couple of years building your savings and learning more about real estate to feel more confident when the time comes.

Focus on tax-saving strategies such as cost segregation studies and bonus depreciation to accelerate deductions.By qualifying as a Real Estate Professional (spending 750+ hours annually and materially participating), you can offset your wife’s S-Corp income with real estate losses, reducing your tax liability.

I have 30+ units and on a regular month usually only spend about 5 hours total on management things, most of which involves collecting rents and bookkeeping.

I’m unable to invest in areas familiar to me as I’m priced out of suburban NJ where I was born and raised.I’m looking to spend $150-$180K on a condo and will need to research viable areas.

But I get it in the lower value assets of the mid west and rust belt cities wholesalers dominate because they spend 100s of thousands in marketing for those type of assets..

I'm going off the understanding that you still need to spend 500+ hours in the business to achieve material participation (please correct me if I'm wrong). 

Rather than just spending the money on a rate buy down. 

Apply for a dimensional variance on the vacant lot to allow a smaller lot and/or setback so it can be built upon.Your best first steps are to sketch a plan, possibly with an engineer's help, then contact the zoning department to discuss your idea with them to get informal feedback on your liklihood of success before you spend a lot of money.

If you buy real estate, you will spend hours and days and weeks and months of your life dealing with it… Home repairs, guests,… An investment really has to be pretty amazing to sacrifice all that time for itThe houses I own I bought many years ago at dirt cheap prices and dirt cheap mortgage rates.

Learn to control your spending and pay off debt.