Hey Account Closed - I highly suggest  using a renovation loan and house hacking a multi-family if that is possible with your current life circumstances.The 203k and homestyle renovation loans are just amazing products and drastically help you reduce your risk, in my opinion, because you are able to leverage the cost of the entire renovation with such a low down payment loan.We work with a lot of clients who use these products in Chicago, and no matter what, in the long term, they gain great equity.If you aren't able to house hack - the process is essentially the same, but just with more money down with hard money or conventional construction loan.

This post reflects my personal experiences and opinions, so always do your own research before making any final decisions.

Even if you personally have just a modicum of design aesthetic sensibility, after reviewing 20 or 30 properties, you will quickly be able to get a sense of the winners.My 2 cents,Mike

Quite the opposite - I invest my personal money as just one more member, in each investment we end up doing as a club. 

Data point: we have a long-term rental in a popular STR neighborhood listed through Zillow right now.Every person who writes asking to do some sort of arbitrage is blocked by the Zillow platform.I don't even have to say "no thank you anymore."  

Have you ever read Amazon.com reviews and wondered how anyone ever decides which product to buy?

For context when we do this our biweekly payments have been around $485 per paycheck so around $1,000 per month of lost income per person when we both do it. 

The idea of debt-free is that if a person is going to retire and has to completely depend on the income, they don't want a severe recession surprising them and causing them to default on the debt and losing the properties.In a normal world, I would do that as well.

Office space is gutsy at this time with many companies working remotely, maybe part of your investment was to bet that people will be coming back to work in person.  

Then I have still have to pay the person who was acting as a host even though no one came.