The ones that think they do are usually following the traditional BP model...and they'd be wrong.You have to "reverse engineer" it, starting from your Financial Goals, and working your way to where you are right now.  

It is very dependent on your investment goals, style, tolerance, risk factors, convenience and so much more.

Everyone has different goals, you haven't mentioned anything about what your future plans are.  

As a result, I've built some smaller goals for myself in order to better prepare for what my REI journey will look like. 

My goal is to at least get another buy and hold deal next year. 

Realtor.com, etc.) and still I haven't achieved my goal of acquiring my first investment property.The properties that I had my eyes set on at the auctions/sheriff sale have all been stayed (every time).

The goal is to attain as much real estate with the lease amount of capital as possible.

My goals in real estate are to achieve financial freedom for me to be able to "retire," then just be able to do it full time.

The reason Bob did not buy the property outright from Mike is because the end goal is to fix and sell, so it seemed silly to pay excise tax twice, also there was a lien on the home and Bob did not want to fool with financing to acquire the property to just turn around and sell.  

We’ve recently committed to building our real estate portfolio with the goal of building our passive income.