Some RE Agents are employees of the Broker but generally most are independent contractors.

This provides an independent scale of 1 to 5 - 1 you should not rent and 5 is a great risk.  

What I think you're saying is that you are an employee of the HOA but working as an independent contractor for the side jobs.

I understand that having a tenant in the building is a higher risk than owner occupied, but somehow I thought that would be offset in that there is no personal property to cover anymore.My next step is to find a good independent broker to look at my entire insurance portfolio.

@David Stratton from your profile I see that you are a real estate agent, which means you are independent contractor.

With each deal try to become more and more independent.

I just purchased a Macbook air with 8GB ram, independent intel 5000 graphics card, intel I5 processor, and 256 gb Flash drive for under 1000 dollars (with an education discount).

Everyone wants to become financially independent at an early age so we can follow our dreams and do whatever we want.

In researching those methods independently, I came across BiggerPockets.com and now I hope that this site will be an invaluable resource as I move forward in my real estate education.I understand that the competition in San Diego real estate is fierce and a difficult place to start, but I hope that I can overcome that challenge and allow the "steel to sharpen steel", and become a more knowledgeable and successful investor for it.

Stuart I had the same internal debate when I did my first rehab and what I found was that every company that I called was literally tens of thousands more than an independent GC or individual subs were with the price.