A house-hack deal would be ideal for a first investment as it will allow you to get your foot in the door with a low down payment.Best of luck to you moving forward!

Second property is the one we just paid off and we were under an ARM which wasn't bad but about every two years it was being sold to a new company and each company was very different in terms of customer service.3.)  

Demand is steep for contractors and trades most won't go out to a property unless you have it under contract or you are a repeat customer.

I can't find the link, but I think it was Poland.I'm not sure if he was reacting to his target customer base, or his own personal likes though.If the developer is a member here, maybe he can weigh in on it.Good Luck! 

When you offer yourself as a lender, there will be all sorts of people that will come up to you, but ideally you would get to know the person that you are lending to.

I am a small fish in my local pond yet I am approached weekly, often daily, via calls, texts, and emails from people who "live in an expensive market and have identified ______ as an ideal Long Distance investment location and will be buying ____(insert audacious number of homes here_____ in the next year." 

it's not ideal and a pretty ****** situation. with that said it was my very first property,  I sucked it up  and did what I had too.   

If the rental real estate activity has an average period of customer use of 7 days or less, or an average period of customer use of 30 days or less with substantial hotel like services provided, it is not a rental real estate activity under IRC Sec 469 and one can bypass the per se presumption and apply any of the material participation tests you previously cited for a passive/nonpassive determination.

There is not really any assessment of the quality of work or customer service, nor is there a reason to use them based on fair and reasonable pricing.

Save the custom build until you're older and have lived in a few places.Look for a MFR (I think 3- or 4-unit properties are way better than duplexes), live there a few years, and then turn it into a pure investment property.