For my LTR I tried to keep landscaping simple. 

Asset Allocation is not going to change your life but if you can save this amount of cash by whatever it is you do keep at it...

Also, just keep in mine that those funds you deposit to your bank account needed to be seasoned for 60+ days (my lender asked for two bank statements).Edit: since its a full purchase then the seasoning most likely would not matter since you're not dealing with the bank. 

Which have been my original main focus, but those cities are getting expensive and when the price is within reason I’m finding a very high crime rate…will keep searching…

And that rather than trying to purchase one property a year I am probably better off investing one every 2-3 years and keeping a higher percentage of my net worth in the stock market.

You can keep trying to market it by yourself, or if you are willing to pay someone to manage the property full-time or even have a property management company get you some tenants and you take it over from there, it just depends on your time and money and what you value you more. 

This community could change your life if you don't get up and keep learning.

To get started in real estate investing, it's important to keep learning about market trends, financing options, property management techniques, and laws that apply.

In my experience people that act like this generally are doing something shady with regards to how they are framing or selling the deal to the seller themselves and are trying to keep all parties in their separate silos. 

Hard money is for flipping generally because you can't keep the loan for more than a year a lot of the time.