A good real estate agent will save you more money than they cost you by helping you avoid pitfalls, saving you massive amounts of time, and negotiating on your behalf.

In my opinion, real estate for cashflow purposes is for those folks with massive wealth who just need a place to store their money, but then again I may be biased because I'm pro business franchises or any other business for that matter that nets 20%+ as I myself am 32 with time on my side, maybe in my 50 -60s, I would consider paying down debt to increase my cashflow as I may not be able to physically grind 12+ hour days like I do now?

You can only "be your own bank" after you have funded the policy with massive amounts of money.

Not only that, but drywalling an entire house is really a massive task.

After that I began to see a massive opportunity to make money on a sector of the real estate market that most investors and/or real estate  professionals either overlook or simply just don’t understand.

We've been working on a 18+ unit project w/ massive delays and issues w/ the GC company. 

I've also found that the numbers on long term rentals are extremely hard to make work unless you do a massive rehab and even then tough.

Simply learning enough about one market to invest with confidence takes an enormous amount of work, gaining enough knowledge so that you can confidently compare investment opportunities in Cleveland versus Toledo versus Columbus versus Pittsburgh versus Buffalo etc is a massive undertaking that is beyond the skill level of many experienced investors. 

(I've seen many people pay for coaching to feel like they're 'doing something' and 'taking massive action' when in reality, they're kind of just delaying taking action, and like to talk about how they're in XYZ program.)I've also seen people jump into coaching programs, and take direct and coached action, and skyrocket in their careers.  

You've already had some massive experience landlording for 5 years and you even dabbled with renovations!