You can fast track your way to your goal by using hard money or private money (private is my favorite).Find people who have the money you don’t and have them get a return on their money.

@Eric Braxton J Scott's book on Estimating Rehab Costs is fantastic--one of my personal favorites.

Obviously you can infact loose some if not all your money if rehabber suddenly goes on a quick unannounced one way trip to Belize or Cayman or if you get stuck trying to foreclose or undertake the rehab project altogether.

My husband and I eliminated a bunch of condos when planning a trip to Hawaii for this reason.

Take some time and pick a market that you believe-in enough to invest in.Take a trip to Allentown and Scranton and talk with some local investors, agents, PMs, etc. and weigh the pros and cons of those markets.  

Here are some of my favorites:1.

My wife and I have taken numerous free trips as a result.

I'm a local realtor here in San Antonio, Texas that currently works with investors in terms of finding them investment properties, guiding them through the rehab if need be, helping them with their exit strategy and repeating this process all over again.In summary, I specialize in:*Selling investment properties to my qualified investors*Help them with funding if their liquid assets are not at a considerable number, or (my favorite) leveraging their money to get the most ROI and saving them in costs through scaling up your business *Guiding them through the remodeling process through referring contractors out, getting bids, sharing personal expertize, etc. 

When two different financial / tax advisors encouraged me to look at solo IRA or 401(k), I figured they both can't be wrong!I spent the weekend visiting lots of websites and reading lots of content. I'm down to three ...

(However, not opposed to trips over the mountain when Vail pass isn't blizzard conditions.)