If you start swinging the hammer during the little time you have left after the full time job and spending time with your family, it might take you months to finish the renovation.

For example, we'd be willing to spend $500/mo on Zillow leads if we knew it'll net us an average of $5000/mo worth of business. 

If youre willing to spend a little money, use listsource to pull recent absentee owner purchases for the past 6 months.

Spend at least 6 months to a year educating yourself about real estate investment.  

I have spend 30 years in the construction field (mostly on the mechanical side HVAC) but have a pretty good sense of building structures.

Michele, yes, I spend a lot of my drive time listening to podcasts.

I have spend almost the past year reading and studying anything and everything I can find.  

and buyers willing to spend more on updated homes (that's a buy and flip). 

Not to mention all the time you will spend dealing with the HOA board.  

In 1988, Michael Weiss, in his fascinating book The Clustering of America, introduced the idea that neighborhoods can be grouped in terms of lifestyles, consumer spending, demographics, and socioeconomic variables.