The houses also are not maintained the best and not of best quality b/c frankly college kids aren't mainly concerned about the look of a house.

Maintain And hold the property.

Actually that is how the WCRT was born and has maintained just teaching and not selling as a huge philosophy.Can't say it has made a ton of money but sometimes doing what is right, well it is just RIGHT.However, I still go to all the other meetings because again I am there to network and meet other active investors.

The neighbor doesn't maintain his backyard at all.

I also feel I have a different approach than most, I genuinely look for and expect the worst so I am prepared for this outcome and when my predictions are wrong it is usually to the better and it makes the tasks go much smoother because they were planned with a worst case scenario.I work a full time job that usually is easily a 50+ hour workweek and then do my real estate business outside of that as well as maintain time for my young son amd wife.

As collateral, I put a lien in the first and only position on a local house I was able to drive by and see was adequately maintained from the exterior, the neighborhood was decent.

Do you think I could do better while maintaining a limited level of involvement in the day to day operations from afar (California)?

I may be better off just holding on to the property, increase (or at least maintain) it's equity, and position myself for the long game.

.- Next, I'll incrementally start to do other things, while doing whatever I can to maintain the income streams I've already created.

Properly maintaining an older car is expensive... they hit the 100K mile mark and the tune ups, belts, 3rd set of tires, etc start to really add up.