So, I lived there for a few years, then moved to Orange County for work and became an absentee landlord.

There are always deals being made, and if the numbers work, and you are willing to hold on for the long haul, there is never a bad time to invest.

Please don't shoot the messenger.I have had to guide my property managers on how to property manage my properties and its taken quite a lot of work and some pain.

We are going to subcontract our the work, as we have done the due diligence to get quotes from several contractors and found a few hungry guys who do good work and aren’t charging top dollar.

If a PM relies on outside companies to do the work and passes on the costs to you it might not be a good fit.

Real estate is a lot of hard work and knowledge.

Our original structure was that I would provide the capital and do the design work and some of the sub oversight.

I want to be a part of it - I would love to work and help with actually building up the house so I guess my question is what is the best step for me?

i think it's a great idea (as the downpayment has to come from somewhere and this way I would argue you have large degree of control of the terms) - as long as the numbers work and the rental cash flows nicely. this way you'll have renters building up your equity over time and chances are, also some appreciation eventually...

Hello there.I’m Eric, I’m 31, and ready for a career change.My career background is as follows: - IT support - Apple Consultant (9 years, current job) - Network infrastructure design and deployment (2 years) - Video production - informercials, commercials, music videos, & real estate video w/ drones (shooting, editing, etc) (5 years) - Photography assistant for well-known photographer (5 years) - Front-end web developer (5 years as job, more for my own businesses)I’ve started up and have run 3 businesses (and many more failed ventures) in these various fields, with varying successes over the years.I’ve done a lot of the following for my own companies:-branding and marketing - logo design - web development - SaaS application research and optimized workflow integration - video production (use to have $45k worth of gear) - sales and invoicing - referral networking (member of some groups for 4 years) - administrative duties / bookkeepingI’m use to doing the sales, project work, and invoicing for a multitude of clients.