They preach relationship building with agents but not everyone has skills to do that. sounds like overpromise under deliver on the "Skill" side

But if you feel like you can learn the same skills on your own through experience and other resources, saving that extra tuition for your first investment might be the better move.

Along the way I've learned a lot of trade skills as well which goes a long way helping to maintain assets. 

.)- All in Cost = Cost to build * Square foot  - Sales Price = All in Cost + (All in cost * 20%)* Covers contractor and soft cost on either fee based or cost+- Profit = (Sales price - (Sales Price * 7%))* - All in Cost   accounts for agent fees and closing cost- Initial List Price = Sales price + 10%      A buffer to test market absorption- Break Even being All in cost, point where everyone is paid except me. - List price is to test the market absorption at "x" price. 250k land + build.

For management, self-managing saves costs and teaches valuable skills, but a property manager is essential for out-of-state properties or scaling your portfolio.

The person worked for H&R Block, now works for TurboTax Live and is being honest about their skills: NOT QUALIFIED.

Still, my soft heart left my head feeling pretty rough, like a "failure".I don't think with your experience and 17(!)

.- Working a W2 as a firefighter, posting and consuming content- Leaving my W2 to dive deep into real estate investing and working as an agent... and still watching/posting content all while business was ok - Deleting social media apps (one have one on my phone that I use 10 minutes or less a day), diving deep into building my business and skills which have drastically increased due to pure focus and increasing my business significantly- moral of the story... focus on the things you need to do in business (dollar productive activities) and life experiences while reducing consumption will increase your success  

Also, there’s much to delve into on of those scenarios, like what type of cashflow or investment do you want, etc. residential, multi-res, small multi-res, commercial, industrial, etc.There seems to be fewer deals around these days and this typically benefits the more experienced and skilled investors but there are always multiple investors that get “tripped-up” in these markets due to them relying on recent “fortunate” market circumstances only to realize the markets cycle and they weren’t prepared or didn’t underwrite properly to account for unforeseen potential.There are more considerations, but this is a start.

I am sure working for the Home Vestors Franchise gave you a lot of tools/skills on getting undervalued properties.