I don’t suspect them increasing significantly but also don’t see them dropping significantly either

Net worth = Assets - LiabilitiesIn my case, I made sure  value of my house increased (Asset) relative to the funds I took for a cash-out refinance I did to access the funds for the renovation (Liability). 

so most people will have to be as leveraged as possible to scale (at the beginning). as in, keep your LTV high and focus on buying 'as much' ($$) RE as possible. this is if you're doing a pretty run of the mill REI strategy like buy and hold. i came across an interesting guideline once: if you could sell today and net 7x+ your annual true net cashflow, you should cash-out/refi, or sell/1031. think of it this way: if your portfolio in a year is worth 1m market value, and you owe 600k, and have a lender that will do a portfolio loan at 80% ltv, you could cashout refi and get 200k to play with (minus closing costs). when you compare the now-lower cashflow from the existing portfolio (higher LTV & maybe different rate), to what you can do with 200k cash, THAT'S where it gets fun. maybe you lose 1k/mo in cashflow on the original portfolio (literally just made up a number, idk), but you can gain 2500/mo in cashflow with that 200k.. then doing the cashout/refi earned you a net increase in your monthly profit of 1500/mo, plus you're getting debt paydown and appreciation on "more" real estate, probably getting bigger tax benefits, etc.

Once you have this team in place, you should be able to invest in any market confidently.As for picking a specific market - I would go after one with an increasing job and population growth.

The best part of these renovations you do for your own house is that not only will it make it nicer to live in, but it will increase the value of the house too!

(Quickbook’s little brother.)It’s very much overkill of what you’re trying to do but it’s super simple, downloads all your bank and credit card transactions, and only costs $50/year. 

I'd go with a flat to keep things simple.

buying and owning a rental is about as simple as it gets in real estate. 

Pretty simple platform, but doesn't have much customization.You could also look into Appfolio, Rentvine, Doorloop and several others, but they cost more and are more complex to implement.We use Propertyware, which is extremely customizable, which is why we selected it, but comes with a long learning curve. 

What are the highest return strategies to increasing refinance value on new homes?