The 3rd thing that has reshaped my entire opinion of the tax advantages of real estate, is seeing my 88 grandfather holding five quite valuable illiquid properties, long story short it’s a mess, it’s causing family drama, he is in zero shape physically or mentally to manage them, the all have cap-ex needs, again these were amazing buy’s literally multiple properties he bought for under 50k that are now worth over a million but there is probably a time and a place for owning real estate, so I don’t really have a need to own more than maybe a few properties into retirement.

I have literally shared the communication between myself, seller, and your Realtor/Mom.

Ok @Sam Epperson, ready for me to literally hand away the "secret sauce"?

that doesn't mean RE isn't a good investment... but it is the case.what i would NOT recommend is buying a random, "cheap' property in a market thousands of miles away that you don't know well and haven't seen in person, and turning it over to a team you don't know. 

Car would have cost $38,000 rounded up to the next thousand.

To me that reeks of someone that wants to do STR (which you do), but is trying to hid that fact behind a term that doesn't indicate what's being requested.To me, a "corporate lease" would mean someone wants to lease a unit for their business and put it under a company name, and not someone that's trying to lease to STR visitors.I need to make a cut-and-paste reply to this question like that dude who literally replies with a mile long message to everyone that asks about LLC.   

you are competing against other investors spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on marketing every month. 

But, I do feel bad for the students, since they are the ones that typically don't have the money to lose, but also get suckered by gurus that they can make hundreds of thousands, if not millions, by investing in real estate.

If I had ten thousand liquid cash to spend, I'd probably do a house hack two-family and obtain an FHA loan with only 3.5% down. 

Somehow that has gotten lost but it costs thousands and thousands of dollars just to buy a property.