A good agent will very likely get you a better deal with better terms and more oversight than you can get yourself especially as a 1st time investor, I will often see things about a property either in the property itself or the listing that would easily get missed by a 1st time buyer, eventually the more deals you do the less you may need an agent, but your 1st few it’s important imo.

I am looking at purchasing a single family residence in Dallas, TX (with a 30 year fixed) built in the late 70s that I will live in and eventually turn into a rental.

When he passed away, I took over management of his property and every one of his five tenants were eventually terminated or evicted.

I have a family friend that is GC but he is super busy so he won't be able to come for a while, but the goal is to eventually rent it out.

Eventually he helped me broker an owner finance deal with the previous owner.

Eventually I hope to get to a point where the extra rental cashflow will suffice for savings and I won't have to take out anymore 401k loans.Keep on crushing it Brad!

Don't give into impatience, or others telling you "just do it", or "the property will eventually cash flow or appreciate".

If you were in my shoes, what would be the best course of action you would take in order to attain your first property, get the rental income generating so I can eventually with time generate more properties and with more properties, more cash flowing in.

Whoever doesn't pay their dues or assessments, the HOA places a lien on the property and could eventual foreclose on your property to get their money.  

I'll definitely get all of my investment and money spent on overhead back in the refi, but do I continue forward with the BRRRR, take the small loss each month, and bank on rates eventually coming down some more where I would refi again to bring the payment down OR pivot to flipping it where I'd make, easily, $40-50k net profit AFTER setting aside capital gain taxes?