$600 to repair a roof leak - you got off easy.  

Best to reach out to an Agent and have help you out on your search with MLS listings and off market deals.

doing some research for an upcoming presentation, and as a hands-ON investor, it can be hard for me to really put my 'hands-OFF hat' on and compare passive investing vehicles without any bias. i'd love to hear especially from those who have tried multiple strategies, which of these you lean towards most & why:- syndications- REITs- private lending- being a hands-off capital partner- buying from turnkey companies (not sure i'd call this passive though)...

It is legit, but you're better off purchasing units in successful STR areas in your market to benefit from the cash flow and equity.

I get MTR leads from Airbnb and do bookings through the airbnb platform.I use apartments.com to manage my Long term tenants and collect rent.What do I need to keep in mind for starting off on the right foot for book keeping?  

We recently found a few off-market properties by driving around but we are struggling to find a way to get a phone number for the properties.

The good news is that once you gain some traction and close a few deals you can hire a VA to help at least make the initial calls and hand off only the sellers interested in an offer 

I could get more on the retail market if I held on to it until summer, when the lake market in our area really takes off.  

As Wayne Brooks said above, anything publicly listed (REOs, HUD, Homepath, etc.) has already been seen by the agents who represent the institutional buyers.If you happen to get one of these under contract for a price below what another investor will pay (unlikely these days), you can definitely still do a double close, assuming there is no resale restriction from the seller.That said, if you have these large institutional investors in your market, you're probably going to want to focus on off-market deals that these guys aren't finding themselves.

Hi Nick, First off, congrats on upgrading to a Pro account!