I am happy to help, do you strictly do deals in PA? 

That degree helped tremendously when renovation projects had to happen.

looking longterm who knows what's going to happen in the market.The largest thing to be cautious about is that with commercial tenants you as the owner often have to put up money in the form of a check or abated or free rent to help the tenant get open for business and build out the space. 

All good reading and listening, education is best and if you want to learn you have to ingest as much information as possible.I read many books that helped me, but my go-to is listeining to at least 2hrs of podcast with real examples per day.One very important things that "want-to-be" fails is to understand that real estate has many different specialities, so you have to focus your time in your real project.

Whereas, if you are holding $1,000 cash flowing property and the markets shift, you likely still have a cash flowing property that can sustain itself, and even help supplement another property that isn't in as great of an equity position. 

If you hadn't noticed in this post stay away from an masonry work if you can help it.

I'm happy to help where I can.

I can help you narrow down the best Texas market for you, DM me, and I’ll point you in the right direction!

As far as hiring the other trades, this can be difficult from a distance, who is helping locally?

Happy to help, just need some clarity on what you're looking to do.