I was thinking starting with that to growth some financial aid. 

My aim is to not only profit financially but to gain in the process some intangible assets, such as project management skills, getting to know reliable professionals (i.e. realtors, contractors, designers, etc.) for the long-term, getting acquainted with the local market's promises and pitfalls, and basically adding some entrepreneurial muscle going into my next project.My strategy is to go small: find a second-hand apartment in a good location (I don't have enough funds for a GREAT location...); no more than 60-70 m2 (that's about 650-750 f2) to, among other things, lower renovation costs; 1-2 bedrooms, street facing and with a lift (if said apartment is above the second floor); with good bones, i.e., needs only partial renovation.

My end goal is to relocate to TX and in the interim , if I can use this opportunity to hold on to one door as a rental property( my current home ), I would like to assess the financial merits and demerits of the same.

My fervor and desire to jump into the game and become financially free was quickly deterred by people telling me I needed to get through school and start making money before I should get into REI.

We all want to close that first deal so badly that we will wreck our financials to make it "work."

I like the idea of the it, I love the yield and asset-backed nature but **** this is the hardest thing I've done in some time. 

The advantage of the bird-dog strategy is that you don't have the financial risk of the double close and you don't even have to get the property under contract.

You have an unrecorded operating agreement giving you 99.9% of the income, assets, losses,etc.However, this is probably overkill.   

This can give an investor an idea of the variety of different asset classes and strategies, and allow them to come up with their own unique due diligence criteria.

As most real estate investors will tell you, the beauty of this asset class is that is often performs better as it ages.