My dream is to buy distressed properties, rehab them, rent them out, leverage other people's money to scale up, and hold my properties forever - basically the BRRRR strategy that @Brandon Turner and @Joshua Dorkin teach.I'm glad I found Bigger Pockets - a great resource.

Matt Avila I would recommend keeping the day job.

Update material costs based on what you saw at Lowes and Home Depot...but check this against homewyse as wellStart making nice with a contractor and ask to see their existing job sites.Use J Scotts method of going to Home Depot or Lowes early in the morning and see who is checking out at the contractors desk if you need a place to startWhen starting don't try to estimate by only looking at an MLS listingIf you're new the odds of you finding a deal on the MLS are rare.

Great job guys. 

find a great deal and a great team and it's a breeeeeeeze  Preach, the teamwork makes the dream work lol

If you do buy the worst property in the best neighborhood, you don't want it to remain the worst property in the neighborhood - there's a point at which you want to do a better job of attracting customers than your competitors, and that's going to be difficult to do if your place is a dump relative to the rest of the neighborhood. 

@Natalie Kolodij did a good job for me and was reasonable pricing wise. 

@Wilson Bunton While I am not a licensed engineer or architect, I do a fair amount of work in AutoCAD and Revit to create sketches and construction mark-ups in my day job.

Rents or home values depend on population growth and jobs.

But, like you, I'm not actually spending any reserves right now because of good W2 job.