I work full-time and my wife stays home with our three kiddos so the idea is to be able to do things on our own time, make offers, check out properties, etc.Local REIA meet-ups are definitely on the immediate to-do list.

Employed "full-time" but my work schedule affords me a significant number of days off, and I have the skills and capability of doing most renovations myself. 

What you do is raise their rents to full market one tenant at a time and if they leave you then reno and find a new tenant at the new full market rent. 

But frankly, buyers are human and not completely rational, so the best you can do is guess what someone else is going to be willing to pay and pad your numbers.

A few challenges I facednot being able to buy the first building until I could afford the mortgage without the incoming rentbreaking even on my first building for almost a full yearlearning how to deal with problem tenantsevictionsfinding contractorsnot being able to buy my second building until I had enough in reserves for all the bills for 3 monthsnot being able to house hack my third building (my favorite) agreeing to buy the third building, having JUST enough for the 25% down, closing costs, etc and then at the same exact time getting a $25k tax bill from the previous year.

I am attracted to real estate as a career for many reasons and would like to do it full time after college.

@Marty Summers you said a mouth full in that last sentence. 

Brought 1st Rental property for $25,000 — Obtained financing based on a subject-to appraisal that came in at $50,000 @ 80% LTV = $40,000.

My original thoughts were I would be able to only put $15K into the property a...

Does it make a difference if the arrangement is more:70% IRA LLC30% cash LLCDo you have to buy properties full cash outright with a self directed IRA, or could my IRA/myself get a commercial mortgage?

@Patrick Vos I work full-time as a GC in the Twin Cities (based out of Minnetonka) and hold both my Residential Real Estate Broker license and Residential Building Contractor license.