Do easy jobs yourself and hire experts for harder ones.

Renovations were done by a close friend who used to be a Reno contractor but had left the business and had a W-2 job at the time; he did the work for me “on the side” when he had time.

You paid them to do their job.  

Thoughts: 1) Even though $500k is a nice sum of money (congrats!)

From who I have spoken to you can just have a property management company similar to a long term rental do the job.

However, if you sold it now and did a 1031 you could buy a really nice rental that you might like to live in one day. 

I'm using the leverage technique as I work a full time job and can't buy anything outright.

I have a rental that has a great rate and low mortgage so I make a nice amount of income from it .

Too many people want a job with work/life balance, a house in the Hampton's, a Maybach, and the ability to binge watch Netflix every night and weekend. 

So I quit my job in 2022 and so for the last year I have been working strictly on my properties.