Deals and partnerships started flowing in when we focused on providing value first rather than chasing transactions.What’s been the biggest shift in your approach since getting clear on your long-term goals?

This a great place to get started. 

BiggerPockets is full of resources designed to help you along your journey, whether you are just getting started or a seasoned investor.

There are easier strategies to start your new venture.

Quote from @Delton Friedman: Hi Everyone, I have been looking at building a duplex to rent in the Houston area, but I am not sure how to start. 

As a broker, you’ve already got a strong foundation, which will give you an edge in finding and structuring great deals.Since you're in Chicago, have you considered house hacking as a starting point?

Awesome gratitude - off to a good start! 

You get out there and put deals together with your eyes wide open to avoid as much as you can. 

My thoughts - this is a GOOD start.

It's basically built on top of WordPress core and they made it simple and easy to navigate.Where in wordpress, you have to get some plugins (some are also monthly paid) to achieve the same kind of functionality.SEO is not just about having a good hosting/platform and features, it's about utilizing the features in a way so your brand has visibility and people that come into your website gets proper value of their time spent.Here's a table comparison for you that I wrote earlierNow whether you have a carrot or a wordpress site, for SEO, you will need:- Website Credibility (Personalisation)- On Page SEO (Keywords, Titles, Meta Tags, Description, Image ALT Tags & Optimization etc)- Social Media Presence (Regular Posts/Videos and Engaging with your audience)- Monthly Content Publishing (Regular Blogs & Location Pages)- Monthly OFF Page SEO (Citations, Backlinks)Now if you consider the cost, end of the day it's quite same for both the platforms.But if you are starting fresh, I see no point of having their 180$ plan, you can continue with 89$/month plan from carrot and assign someone in your team to put regular blog posts and update the location pages.Or if you want to use WordPress and get someone setup the website and do regular content updates for you, then It can take 3-6 months to start seeing visible growth in organic traffic if all the things mentioned above are taken care of.