It occurred to me that I may be able to save a few thousand dollars if I act as my own agent.  

My advice would be to read the The Ultimate Beginner's Guide and other posts in these forums.

Ultimately, we want to own enough rental properties to replace our day job incomes.

I ultimately want to buy something and live in it, and I want to stay in LA, so while being a good investment on its own merits is important, what seems to matter most is that it be better than renting.I'm sure that this has been asked/answered elsewhere on the site so I'll be digging in to see what I can find, but it's the most burning question on my mind the last few days, so I figured I'd package it in with my introduction as well.Cheers, and looking forward to getting to know many of you over the coming weeks/months!

The following items were neglected in order to save money, as examples: our hedges all had extreme white fly damage, wood rot due to water damage and putting off painting, our pool restrooms have massive holes in the roofs and we are in the process of reconstructing 2 of them.

Not necessarily as good as it sounds due to having to meet the standard deduction, which is around $12k or $13k for families, I believe, before any real savings kick in.

I believe that just based on everything I've also studied about marketing, and why I decided to use my small saving of $3,500 to take the plunge.

My advise.... stay focused, save some money, and INVEST in real estate - long term buy and hold is the path to real wealth - take your time and set your goals on buying your first rental property - as an owner occupant if possible.good luck

Also, save save save!

We have 35k in savings. (20k of which is from an estate) We were told, to our surprise, by the town housing department that we have a 3rd unit registered.