Then I realized that the rent was about $700 below market rent and my expenses were getting out of control (taxes, insurance, mortgage, repairs) so for the past 8 years I was slowly increasing the rent every year.  

You say the investor got the better of you in terms of gaining equity but the equity you thought you had was only paper equity and not equity that would be realized. 

I’ve been realizing more and more that I need to find a way to just get a deal done on my own to get the wheels in motion, which most likely would need to be long distance given the price constraints in my market. 

I.e. using John's $30/psf is great, until during your renovation you realize that a previous owner only update the wiring to romex in the unfinished basement, but didn't run it to all outlets and light.  

Quote from @Steven Mendiola: @Steve K.Yeah, the more I look around the more I realize the Rv option isn’t so doable.

And that's only if you realize the gains by selling.

Stupid me for not realizing it was only for 1-2 years which is essentially floating rate updated annually or every 2 years.

@Jeff Fortuna@Dan Rowley   @John McKee - I'm receiving roughly 7% CoC returns for my two investments, with projections those will rise in future as they are able to realize contractual rent increases.

I only use it for my client do get the credit card feeds but here and there an account or two is completely out of sync and I didn't realize it until my client's assistant was questioning the other credit cards.

As I have been listening to a lot of real estate YouTube videos I realized that my moving into the unit is a major contribution to this deal and instead of us paying 20% we got 5% yet we are contributing the same amount of money.