You want an agent who is knowledgeable and who has multiple markets.  

As far as building and extra unit in the back.

My two large losses this year happened because of bad, fluffed CMA's that we went by because we bought before we had access to comps ourselves and had a general knowledge of the neighborhoods. 

Real estate has always been on my mind but I haven't really dove in to gain the knowledge of where to start. 

.- My goal is to follow Scott Trench's ideas in Set for Life and hopefully rent a room for under $1200/month to save some extra cash and use it along with my current savings to buy and house hack a duplex/triplex/fourplex in 4-12 months in the Oakland/Emeryville area.- I consider myself very handy since I have renovated my entire house 99% by myself and pulled permits. 

Getting my glossary together and my knowledge as sharp as I can before jumping in. 

They bring the cash and knowledge, you bring the property and get to learn.

Do you have some extra funds that you could reinvest and rebuild?

So for people who are in this higher income situation it would be better for them to take LPMI (lender paid MI) which is in essence a bit of a higher rate in order to not pay monthly MI because this particular person could write off the extra interest and typically pay less than what monthly MI would "have," been in lieu of the LPMI option.For smart investors who buy undermarket value and fix up, it may be best to .....

                     $220 Vacancy/minor repairs/maintenance                    $220 a month for water/sewer/trash/landscape/snow (actual should be way less)                     $1000 debt serviceNET loss of $160 a month      The cash flow is terrible of course, but that is mainly from the outsized taxes which was from what I can tell from tax records an extra school levy, total taxes for 2016 were  $2341 on same valuation.