On jobs where I was a subcontractor, working alongside the builder's own employees (with no direct on-site supervision), the amount of outright theft of time by some guys in this business, by constantly showing up late & taking 20 extra minutes at lunchtime, is appalling, and lots of builders have too much going on to truly see how much it costs them.

An invited guest of the tenants brought a child over and that guest (and everyone else at the home for that matter) failed to supervise the child, and unfortunately the child fell in the pool and drowned.  

Are you comfortable going out there to supervise? 

Would you agree to supervise someone's rental for 30 days for $65?

You can also have a licensed person supervise you, but then your client is their's.What are consequences to not having one? 

Flipping well requires a dedicated and well-vetted team at a minimum + a lot of supervision. 

I've jumped around a bit to try to find my "fit" and after much soul searching, realized I have picked up a set of valuable skills (experience with legal documents, customer service, time management, supervising others, hospitality, etc) but not necessarily a dream vocation.

I supervise the credit and collection department in a large wall street company.

Is there a way to compromise and crate-train them when not supervised?

Hi George,The areas you are talking are mostly driven by appreciation and speculation that values will keep rising.That is a very low cap of 3.5%.I do work with many investors from California,New York etc. wanting to get a higher return than what they can get locally.I have owned businesses before so it is critical when buying a business that you have a proven business model in place with management so that you do not have to be there every single day.If you set up a business as an absentee owner with moderate supervision then you can count that as an investment and not a job.I don't know that you put 800,000 into your dream home.Having the money work for you instead of dead equity especially being able to lock in low interest rates today I would invest as much as I could.Get a loan for that house and put minimum down possible to preserve cash.The Ocean house is nice and I am sure it will appreciate over time but will be dead equity until you refi out or sell.Even on refi they will not let you go to 100% so any appreciation likely you will not be able to refinance because of LTV ratios in the near term.I don't know that you want to be a real estate agent in the typical sense.You would have to define residential versus commercial etc.I would put most of your money to work as I don't think your cap is going to get any lower for resale plus you can invest in markets without rent control where you reap more benefits.