During this strategy, I broke even and lived for free, covering my yearly total of PITI.

What I think is important is to know what your financial strength is purchase the property to structure a loan to best fit your needs or come up with a strategy to allow you to buy the property say in a lease with an option to purchase.

Only in the past few years has “cash flow” even been a strategy.

Share your risk management strategies and lessons learned.

Also, what strategy do you intend learning/using for your first investment property?

@Andy Oshodi the REI business is hard but house hacking is one of the easiest most powerful strategies out there.

I am totally new with fix and flip strategies and I am considering mentorship programs but I am not sure if they are worth it. 

As Brian suggested you should discuss your strategy with your CPA.

They'll add value to the deal, refinance, and repay their investors—a strategy implemented repeatedly for value-add/distressed deals.

Those costs get pushed onto the customer.