As both an investor and agent born and raised in B/CS, I feel confident in our market and will continue to pump my money in it!

Your time is best spent finding deals, raising capital and delegating the days to day if you really want to create a legacy to pass on to your kids and their kids and so on. 

PITI dramatically understates the total cost of owning a rental property.Depending on financing, expenses, vacancy and whether or not you're able to raise the rent, your cash flow might or might not increase each year.  

I also told her that it would be worth it when I was done because I would potentially be able to leave my job flying planes for the Navy, not deploy again, and be home to help raise our family. 

Sometimes a bridge loan can save on early payoff fees if you plan to refi, and often raising the reno budget funds through debt is cheaper than with equity.

And backed by his/her credibility, raising capital from banks and private investors become a whole lot easier vs. you doing it by yourself.For example, last Friday, a "newbie" (he is an experienced apartment investor but he has not done a development project before) showed me 3 buildings in downtown Cincinnati owned by a billionaire.

I am born and raised in the Kansas City area and work in the fire protection industry. 

I suggested you can have a new bull-nose built and Brian pointed out you can raise the existing one - both of these ideas will work and both rely on the fact nobody is going to notice an extra 1/4 inch of height there.When I see these pics the thing that stands out to me is that the parquet is dated and on top of that, they got lazy and raised it up instead of removing the plywood (it was likely originally carpet) and adjusting the height with something else.

In order to raise capital use other peoples money to do real estate deals you need to be an expert first.

-StephenIf you do not have the cash or any equity in the property at all to pull a HELOC or a refinance you can always raise private money, partner with someone, use creative financing to get into a primary residence through owner financing, lease option, subject to.