If you know the market and where to price your property, a listing agent is really not going to add a lot to the process and will cost you 3%,  Now before I get blasted by agents posting how mush they add to the sale on the listing side, I will say that if you are not familiar with the sales process, maybe you need to pay the 3%. 

@Jagan ReddyI'm not a CPA or a cost segregation specialist, but I do know that if you are not designated as a  real estate professional, then you can only offset passive income by your passive losses.Qualifying as a real estate professional is more challenging than most people want you to think.

I know I should just be focused on house-hacking my first property because I haven't done it yet, but what should the next step look like?

But by this way, I do not know if the equity can increase more than BRRRR strategy when refinance or NOT since there is no rehab involved.With HELOC, I think they allow me to take out 70-80% of equity which will be $250k-$300k.

I read their NOI statement and know that it is not correct. 

I would also like to know more about the address to see if you are buying something that is overpriced in a low rent area

After all how do you know seniors will come to the house if you build something somewhere?

At this point I know they are not pulling permits. 

Just don't know what risk this way has.

I'm guessing you know none of the US databases are going to have anything on them.