My PM was slow to respond and when I finally became aware of this I contacted tenants directly to apologize and then straightened things out including firing the PM.

We slowed down again when it came time for exterior veneer, since we had to find some higher end dudes for our stonework than we normally use.But the time we spent using guys that take their time and know what they were doing was well worth it!

Montana has a number of vacation rentals and vacation rental opportunities, but our prices are pretty high.There are those diamonds in the rough if you are willing to dig deep enough.

Most people prefer the island to be a large/uninterrupted workspace.Since its 3' deep, your probably doing some overhang too, if you were to put the sink in the island, I would build a half wall-40.5" tall and have the overhung portion of the counter at bar height..

The equity loan is not enough to buy 5 houses at a time even if I got the houses at a deep discount.

When I was a young adult (I use "adult" loosely, because I was a slow maturer ;-) ) I learned that accepting money from my older relatives (parents and grandparents) meant I had to listen to their spiels before they handed over the money, AND I sometimes had to agree to do things I didn't always want to do. 

I'm elbow deep in it all day every day.

I started slow and did it as a hobby on the side and only got serious about 2 and 1/2 years ago. 

Forcing myself to dig deep and get through the overwhelm allowed me to keep the momentum.  

However, there are a few indicators in my market (Charlotte, NC) that point towards it being a bit on the overheated side: deceleration in construction projects, house flip rates very close to 2007/early 2008 levels, price expansion (appreciation) slowing down (according to some articles).