While I may not have been able to buy a place at 19, I would have been able to go to real estate meet ups, maybe get my license and do some contracting work on the side doing something simple with low barrier to entry such as paint or flooring work

I did find a property that is $79k and has many cosmetic issues such as stained wood floors, ugly paint, needs new floorboards, just small things like that.

We are having to redo our kitchen flooring because of previous work that was done improperly.

Kitchen, Baths flooring paint and fixing misc What was the outcome?

The new ADU law does not allow counties or jurisdictions to use a new ADU against your FAR (floor area ratio).So you can simply take your existing garages and convert them to an ADU.

If the $20k you spent were “capital improvements” like new upgraded floors or countertops then you can add it to the denominator as capital.

Added a 3rd bedroom new kitchen bath flooring paint windows garage door floors doors and trim.

You need to have enough to pay for several repairs per year and to build a reserve to do things like paint and carpet cleaning or floor refinishing.

The house has a lot of potential and just needs a lot of non necessity work such as refurbishing floors and putting drywall in.

Let's look at floors. 10 year life span.