My wife and I also invest in STRs and I spend a lot of time working over the best place to buy our next property.I've been looking at Packwood recently for a client.  

I 100% know that he's going to spend a decent part of the 2 days trying to get me to invest in Cardone Capitol.

Trust.I am spending upwards of $7K having my STR to LTR back to STR repainted and refurnished.  

Unless you are planning on investing in your back yard and have extra time to spend, getting a good PM is very important.  

If I'm spending 500k... my profit should be higher? 

Most people would rather spend or save their money, so someone who is willing to invest it should be compensated appropriately.

Be prepared to spend a lot of money creating the infrastructure.  

After spending 25 years as a Software Engineering and Product leader, I’m now exploring the world of real estate investing (REI) and looking forward to learning from all of you.My goal is to leverage my current investments and savings to build a real estate portfolio that will eventually allow me to transition away from my current career.

If possible, you may want to learn in a place where you don't need to spend $750k on a fixer. 

Company overhead - you will need to spend $5-$10k per year on taxes and company overhead. 5.