We were VERY fortunate.  

I was fortunate enough to find a fulltime engineering intern job my sophomore year in a very good company who wanted me to work through school so I know how you feel.

I currently live right down the street from the property which will fortunately allow me to keep a close eye on the work being done.

I was fortunate enough to have a landlord that gave me my entire deposit back on the spot-- no issues, no concerns, no headaches. 

I'm a little younger than you so I was fortunate in that I didn't have any money to invest back in 2007 as I was just finishing residency or I might have lost big time. 

I'm pretty fortunate that there are only 9000 people in my town.10) If you have debts on your STRs and furnishings, an STR is probably not for you.

Fortunately for me, my purchase was raw land and that isn't considered 'doing business'...

If they truly made a fortune, there should be some news on that.

I'm sitting here scrolling through bigger pockets to actually educate myself on real estate investing while they're pitching the upsell Mastery program for a hours

Lesson learned

My name is Tony and I am new to BP and the forum, I was aspired to become a C suite member of a Fortune 500 companies after graduating with my Master Degree in business until I read the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad", I made a decision then to retire from my current job in 5 years through passive income generated through rental properties and am currently studying real estate investing and aiming to purchasing my first property before the end of this year, I look forward to learning from everyone and to achieving financial freedom together!