Here's my overall plan:I graduate in 2019 and immediately start working and building creditI live with my parents (they've agreed to let me) until I have a decent income from real estate.I have to go to college but I'm going community and my father has agreed to pay for my student fees so there's no concern thereHere's where it starts getting good...My longtime friend (since kindergarten) is VERY entrepreneurial and is also the son of a contractor and is planning on going into contract work.

I have mine in Fidelity and Vanguard no load, no fees and I can trade stocks & ETFs cheaply if I want.At Dow 26,000 I'd be dollar cost averaging out of equities honestly. 

Also, you PM fees will be astronomical (8-10%) compared to the fees paid by 100+ unit owners (3-3.5%). 

I like to see what people think of Redfin and their 1% listing fee.

I know a lot of investors don't like paying the fees, but on those early purchases, our agent saved us so much time and money and was an invaluable part of getting us off the ground.

If you say they are, you are just proving that it is hard to find consistency in CPAs.Actually you may be right because in my opinion  if the expenses (property manager fees, inspection cost for example) belong to 2017, so the income should even though the property manager still holds the money.As I always did all my accounting, I am doing as well the Malta part, and I think I know what to do.

My only reason to sell would be to keep buying hidden deals.

Yes, there will always be an abusive party; wonder if they can be curbed (no pun intended) with deposit/monthly fees. 

You can research it yourself, there are companies that will do title searches for a subscription fee, or if you have a good relationship with a title company they may do prelim's for you but if you are sending them dozens of properties a week you better be giving them a lot of business.

Wouldn’t this be cheaper for you than hard money interest and up front points (those are fees just to get the loan)?