This may be controversial but it seems like you would be saving a lot of money at the moment given your reduced living costs.

In my area a house call for locksmith is going to cost $75-100 just to walk in the door, so $135 all in is not that big a deal.Not a hill I want to die on....... use it as a learning moment for the tenant- ALL repairs need to be approved by you BEFORE they are done.

Having a very negative experience with Suncoast at the moment.

Participants are continuously told “we’ll cover all these details so you can do this too in just a moment”, the moment never arrives. 

For a moment, it seemed like the “lock-in effect” might ease up.

I am still personally buying rentals but I am not expecting much in the way of cash flow at the moment.

In my opinion, in many cases it’s better to invest in a property that costs less and is a bit under decorated - then hire a really good decorator to upgrade at least a few rooms for the unique,  “wow” moment in photos.

That’s great advice Taz, I’m currently working on saving enough money to get started, house hacking is hard for me at the moment because I just bought a house 2 years ago, I would have to sell my house(which is in a great neighborhood great location) and use that money to fund the duplex which isn’t totally out of the question, I would like to keep the house if possible but also would like to get real estate investing more.

I thought it would be fun to start a thread where we can share our craziest fix-and-flip stories, biggest "oops" moments, and the golden nuggets of wisdom we've picked up along the way.

I will probably avoid these guys for the moment, as I would hate to have capital tied up in lawsuits.