I know a year may seem like a long time, but remember real estate investing is a long game.

With that said, I am considering jumping into a house hack using my VA Loan and then repeating the process every 1-2 years until I can accumulate enough properties to help supplement retiring one day.I am doing research on the climate of things right now in the market but the reality is I need a new place to live and house hacking seems like the best way to invest my money and lower my monthly overhead costs so I can save money. 

Columbus does seem to be a great place to invest.

If it seems too good to be true, it most likely is.

That seems odd. 

Ive been reading about SEP IRS self directed IRA and 401 k but seems to be for self employed people. any idea how to re-allocate my ira into real estate investments??? 

We also looked into Ron LeGrand's course for creative finance, the price was nice however, it seemed a little outdated (now we may be wrong).In an ideal situation, we would like to spend $5k or less on the course, online, with the chat-bots or a call-in line for questions with an extended expiration date to ensure my business partners and I have enough time to thoroughly study and take the course and also have the opportunity to re-visit if we have more questions later on. 

Sometimes it's hard to find good plumbers, and if you've already talked with the owner and they didn't compensate you or lower the cost, to me, that seems unreasonable.

Seems like an overall complicated platform to manage 1 or 2 units

I looked that the 8582 form, and it seems like that is true, but I am really hoping not.