You can buy a house that need lots of work that's another way, do as much work as possible be the project manager how ever you can help to save money .BIG pockets can jump in on a MLS ride it out .

Hope this helps for now, and great to hear you are paying attention to your hard earned retirement funds with such care and discipline! 

I want to save a little $ by not having to pay an agent over 25K in commission for a project like this.

That brought me to about a year ago, when my Mom wanted to retire.

We have some $ saved  but don’t have enough to put a full 20% deposit down as needed by most conventional lenders.

so if you don't have a lot of money, then you'll have to save some up.hope this helps

The cost to repair your vehicle, and perhaps the other person's car, will be WAY MORE than the cost of the insurance premiums you saved by not having insurance. 

I'm passionate about real estate and how utilizing this asset class can enable me to build generational wealth and retire early.

(Granted, I am not factoring in various fees that may be saved by financing at acquisition).

My brother who is civil service and retired military.