So I'll take a crack given you've identified having $50K; not sure about buy and hold but open & you believe that homes are at their top end in the C neighborhoods you've been exploring but you want to scale up.

See if you can identify what type of traveler is most likely to be looking for a short term rental near you, and work on targeting that market.

Whether it’s your own businessReal estateStocks etc.Utilizing your time to identify your passions and creating it into your career.I’d love to connect with any other service members that are looking to invest in real estate out of state / overseas.

That said, the 1031 rules are awful.Whoever decided on 45 days to identify hasn't bought much real estate...

Since you have multiple properties you can try out different PMs on different properties at the same time, and over time as you identify who is the best fit for you, turn all your properties over to them.

You'll have to identify what you want in a PM, and go from there.

My preferred hard-money lender has been identified, but I am looking to find an honest and fair General Contractor to build a positive, professional relationship with.

Using drone/satellite footage to identify distressed properties3.

-Investment real estate to investment real estate only-45 days to identify and 180 days to close on the new property-The taxpayer who sells must be the taxpayer who purchases.Within these 6 requirements are a myriad of twists, hurdles, and gotchas. 

So the way that you become a hard money lender is by identifying good people to lend to.