Having cash reserves gave me the confidence to move quickly on a great deal without losing sleep over unexpected expenses.

If you don't want to spend time or risk losing money, LTR and multi-family is rather safe.

Then your strategy of offer full price and then negotiate down / what if they say we will fix the repairs then you would be forced to close and lose your EMDNot sure where you came up with this but many will view components of this as unethical and why investors get a bad rap from politicians

Padsplit people try to sell you that it's only a small portion of your income (1 out of the 6-8 members) vs if you do long term, you are losing 1 of 1 income. 4.

Sure it can work for some but it is an uphill battle and like @Travis Timmons said, you are losing out on appreciation...the Holy Grail...I would just start buying property, some may work as STR, some may not....but they all should work as LTR.

All three properties have positive cash flow - not a lot, but I am not losing money.  

This is why you need to do a ton of due diligence on them and make sure they have skin and the game and something to lose.

One of the reasons why I’m bullish on real estate investing is because I am more afraid of the “what if I didn’t invest” rather than the “what if it goes wrong.”Yes, I could fail and lose everything I started with, but I’d still be farther along than if I never started at all.I’d have the knowledge, skills, and lessons that only come from taking action.Every misstep is a step forward when you’re learning and adapting.The real risk isn’t failure, it’s standing still and letting fear hold you back.Take action!!!

I know these will require detention and plan on losing about ⅓ of land for this.

I am 100% against prenuptial agreements.If someone is concerned about losing their investments, they should be careful who they marry.