I don't plan on going to any courses any time soon, I haven't been interested in anything I can't find in a book.

After reading a bunch of blogs, posts, watching videos, googling, I ran across the book "How to Invest in Real Estate" (https://www.biggerpockets.com/store/how-to-invest-in-real-estate-ultimate) and decided to buy it and read through it in a few days (reading it again). 

Fifth, this building is currently owned by an LLC and it showed a $15,000 net gain for 2017, but when I ran the deal through the BP calculator it came up as a money pit, and I am skeptical about the monthly cash flow.

I ran into the same problem.

The issue I ran into with investing in Nica was twofold:1) Buy land with a sturucture already on it — this would be my preferred method given I live in the US nand have a full-time job here.

In late October/early November 2008, I was in Mosul, Iraq and finally noticed that the economy was going poorly (I'm slow at times), so I decided that if it was still tanking by December when I returned home, I'd buy a foreclosure and get out of my studio.

On private lender is going in 50% on a new buy and hold - he is bringing 100% of the down payment and we are doing 100% of all the finding buying and ongoing PM.

@Jason Hirko I ran these numbers assuming that I could get a 100% loan from a hard money lender.

There is no right answer, only much ongoing debate that goes back centuries.One of my business professors would joke: Management is the world's newest profession and it has a lot in common with the world's oldest profession.

I know if I was going to be late because I ran out of checks (that's a good one), I would consider each possibility to get the funds to the landlord on time.