However, an buyers agent does help when negotiating and does save you a lot of time when you are doing multiple projects a month. 

You might as well save yourself the headache and put that $ into a mutual fund which will get you 6-8%, you should be looking for deals with 15% CoCR. $200/mo without paying your self for being a property manager is not a good deal!

My most recent credit score is fair-good and by my calculations, I will have $10K saved by the time that I am ready to purchase the property and move in, but that's my only liquid capital ($10k). 

If you're looking at investing for retirement and that's 20 years down the road it's hard to discount long-term appreciation, rent growth, relatively mild weather, and proportionally lower property taxes.  

I could be way off base, I am just a retired mufflerman ; )

This being my first year I did not know what to expect, but today I found out it will be over $6000 per year into my retirement.

Great idea to get involved with RE investing early and reap the benefits of compounding appreciation, as well as cash flow.I'm a Retired USAF Officer & my Son is Retired Marine (Class of 91). 28 Years experience in Real Estate Sales & Management.

Operating expenses are very low because I use gas dryers (instead of electric), tankless water heaters for hot water, and high efficiency, front load washers to save water.  

I've done this twice: the first resulted in about $550 less in yearly taxes, the second only saved about $150.

The tide will rise and save all of us developers in 10 years, but being early is the same as being wrong.