Some people use virtual assistant independent contractors and some hire w-2. if you are rehab and flip you can be much more profitable if you outsource  the construction and minimize marketing costs and overhead to manage leads.

Each market is different and independent of the other, so housing prices can be going up like a rocket in one part of the country and down in another part at the same time. 

If I do not have an independently documented expense, then I don't take it.

No.For at least half the people who read along quietly in these forums, people with healthy, stable incomes working 80-hour weeks who are looking for an alternative place to park their savings and watch the money grow, reaching for financial independence in this property class will always be a mirage.For almost all the rest, the idea of being a handyman as part of being a real estate investor is both repugnant and, to them, stupid.

Remember you are the independent contractor, so in a sense you are hiring them.  

Clearly most financial institutions offer escrow services as part of their mortgage services, but can these institutions also just set up an independent escrow account?

It has an independent appraisal of $2.1 million that was completed recently, yet the seller is asking $2.7 million for it.

You’ve come to the right place for financial independence, BiggerPockets is such a great resource. 

Because I plan on having a long-term relationship with real estate, and I don’t mind climbing the financial-independent ladder a little bit slower if it means I could make my future wife happy and live a more comfortable fulfilling life.

Mid 20th century saw a cigarette company hire a marketing demon that convinced the women of that time that smoking cigarettes made them independent and glamorous, doubling their profits.