I am green as grass when it comes to all things real estate, please tell me what I'm doing wrong and how to protect myself from myself.

Looking to get into REI for the cash flow to diversify my income streams and get to financial independence quicker.

I have 24 units and I am trying to set up on Quickbooks because it gives more financial reports.

Several separators besides experience is connections and relationship w/brokers to get better deals,  financial might to get larger deals and scale their operations, clustering strategies to further reduce risks and costs, etc.  

Just protect the brick.

Or is it a financial manner in the sense that you can't find any good deals at home.

There is a lot of good information here on BP in the forums.The basic concept is that you can diversify your tax-sheltered retirement savings from stocks, funds, CD's and other conventional financial products and include investment options such as real estate, notes. etc.  

This way there is no title insurance or the protections that title insurance provides.If you go this route, you can not refinance or sell the property until you clear the title.

If I was you I would start at a financial institution to see how much you can get approved for. 

You could tie it up with a standard contract amended to include "outs" for you on interest rate changes and property appraising at a certain level and changes in your personal financial situation.