Screen tenants carefully, budget for vacancies, and keep learning with books like The House Hacking Strategy and Landlording on Autopilot.Good luck!

And unless you have very deep pockets, you can't afford to be that much off....So as has been said....hire a very experienced General Contractor and have them give you a budget number based on your SOW, (plus they will find other things that need to be done that you will not have seen).On your succeeding projects, you do a budget yourseld first, then hire the GC and compare numbers.Then, eventually you will be comfortable going all solo...but it takes time.

I fix n flip and I always add the cost of paying an agent in my budget.  

They got fundamentally sound real estate, with matching debt (10+ yr fixed rate) and budgets with the intent to hold nearly forever. 

Eventually we upped the budget to get something we would absolutely love even if it was slightly cash flow negative.

A lot of people will pay $1200/nt for 4 crappy budget motel 6 quality rooms at the All-Star resort rather than $175/nt for an 8br themed out mansion with a private pool, theater, and $30,000 arcade room.To answer your original question on investing over a long-term period, that is really this market's main strength. 

While the circumstances may seem entertaining, the reality is this is not a laughing matter.

You can view my live rehab budget spreadsheet as I renovate here if you're interested in following along I'll be posting @LearningToDIY on instagram too https://biggerpockets.notion.site/Rene-s-Renovation-Budget-T...

On an annual basis, the administration is mostly meeting minutes, resolutions, and annual filing of your 990, most of which can be outsourced depending on your budget.

Then we sent them each the same raw video and told them our budget, in this case only $50.