I like the idea of passive income as I'm not sure how much longer my body will last in the army ( haha ) so I'm looking toward the future for my family's sake.

I will property return to your post on the future to read it a couple more times. 

We are hoping Real estate investing will allow our family to transition out of the military to a financially stable future for our 3 children.

My goals for the future are to network and build many strong connections, own rental properties, flip houses for resale (seeming as my experience will help with the rehab process) and to make wholesale deals.

I also saw your profile and I need a roofing contractor so please pm me for future projects.

I'm sure I'll be contacting you in the near future!

However, this home is in Berkeley and I am concerned about destroying historical elements and potential added structural engineering costs that could make the house attractive to a buyer in future years, along with the opportunity cost of construction now versus getting rental income from the house in the next few months. 

With $200 a month in rent (just used a high number to account for future increases in rent) if you rented it out, it'd take about 10-12 years or so to match that 30k.3) Have a meeting with your realtor and discuss your displeasure with his strategy.

I honestly don’t recommend this for you just cause you don’t seem experienced enough to successfully pull this off and the downfall is wasting an investors time, whatever appraisal will cost you, and losing an investor with tons of possible future deals because you bit more than you can chew on your first deal with him.

You are smart to start at 25 and build your future early.