We did that to streamline the process and gain experience.

Building three more vacation rentals before the year ends is an ambitious goal—kudos to you and your partners!

It's the land/location increasing in value - not the home itself, in my personal experience and opinion

One of my clients has begun managing and also GCs (higher end properties).

As long-time QuickBooks Desktop users, we were working with the 2019 version.

Since you are just graduating college you may already realize that it's not what you know, but who you know (as a personal note, I had college friends that were barely passing their classes however they ended up with really good paying jobs due to "who they knew").

So, if you felt that was the price range and chose to come in on the lower end of that I would stick with that and enjoy what will hopefully be a LONG LONG tenant stay. 

I have no experience in real estate and have no mentor so I joined to grow my knowledge and better prepare for the journey I'm about to start.

I saved nearly 50k on my last rehab which in return yielded much more equity in the end.

"I will buy at least one single-family home, duplex, triplex, or fourplex before the end of 2019") and then do it.