I am new to real estate investing and thinking of starting off by doing a "house hack" via renting out the unused basement as a short term rental (AirBNB, Vrbo etc) in my single family home which is used as primary residence.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Macy's, a cornerstone of American retail, is seeing significant interest in the real estate it has put up for sale, a promising sign in a challenging market.

It seems like a lot of folks use Podio, but I'm thinking about just making a Google Sheet with contact info and using Evernote to keep notes about meetings for active projects.

EXP and Real

I am a Real Property Appraiser 2 at my county tax office I am a long time listener of the podcast.

Rental 1 - Cash flow Breakeven - rate 3.875% - 20-25% equity (not looking to refi)Rental 2 - Looses about a few hundred a month - rate 9% looking to refinance soon to 6.9% but debating on waiting until rates drop further - 5-8% equityPrimary - currently at 7.25% waiting to refi to 5.5-6% - about 5-10% EquityMy current net worth breakdown is approximately...Real estate 39%Cash reserves 7.5%Brokerage 30%Retirement 17.5%Other 6%

I've found that what I value most in regards to real estate investing are the people who know about actual home repair and can approach a sale from that perspective.

What follows will probably sound somewhat pessimistic - but I put it out there for your consideration...Understand that your journey will be a long one, as real estate is usually not a get rich quick game.  

There is also a much larger inventory of rentals for a prospective resident to look at, a few years back we were in the 3ks for vacants and this year bumping up near 5k during the peak season (in my opinion probably due to the low entry price point for investors compared to the rest of the country as well as low interest rates on loans for folks moving out of their homes).