Your best investment is in yourself.Consider going to college or learning a trade.Use the funds to invest in something that does not require much time so you can focus on learning.If you do decide to get into real estate, you may want to consider doing a house-hack.It will give you a place to live(potentially saving you a few hundred dollars from paying rent and also giving you training wheels for being a landlord).

There are literally hundreds of STR facebook groups, for cities and resort areas throughout the U.S. and the world.

Even if it meant that we pay a few hundred bucks a month, at the end we get a whole house.

We have stared the project about a month ago, completely new interior including adding new HVAC all new electrical, flooring, cabinets, tops and so on along with new driveway exterior paint and some siding.My contractor is also an investor, so we were lucky there, good insight to share and also, he has lots of leads for renters.But he is NOT a good photographer LOL. here are some progress pictures .Also, I will like to share that we are closing on one more single-family property early next week and we have a duplex under contract._________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________10/12/2024.

I was able to get in at a lower cost basis, and the property didn't cash flow while I was living there (this is a common misconception with house hacking) but I lived almost for free - Only had to kick in a few hundred bucks a month. 

Take Tampa for example—it’s been hit by a hurricane once every hundred years.

(Large hump in middle of room plus cracking along drywall), mine has a large basement(cant count as living space due to no egress) old kitchen cabinets, old furnace, old windows(condensation in between panes).

Leave the ugly cabinets (or just paint them), leave a roof thats on its last leg and maybe has 4 or 5 years tops with repairs if that.My goal was to take down houses and by doing that, I was able to grow faster and offer more so I could get more. 

What exactly did not come across in this the first hundred times you read/heard it?

I have shared this hundreds of times over the last 5+ years.