If you have passive income you can buy your time back.You need cash and equity in your property to have the margins to weather temporary downturns or unexpected repairs.

If it costs me $12K in (paid) labor, versus ZERO or even $6K to do it myself I have to gain one heck of a lot of "leverage" to make that pay.

I have decided that real estate investing is going to be the tool I use to gain financial freedom.

I have held the property at times in order to qualify for long term capital gains treatment, that would be hard to do if I was paying hard money rates.

no cap gains and they increase what they can buy each time.

I figured I would buy it for below market value, do most of my own repairs, and then sell after 2 years so i don't have to pay capital gains tax.

The only way to gain that knowledge, is through years of hands on experience.

Now, if you are passively investing and someone else is managing then an hour away is much less of a concern.

That's considered a passive investment, and some of the structures only work for "operating companies."

and i don't regret it at all. sure it's nice to have made a great profit on my first transaction but i viewed the situation as:1) i can continue to rent...2) ...or own a property paying the same amount of rent and expenses while gaining experience.in both instances my cash flow (i'm going to include the income from my job) would have stayed relatively the same---granted i pay about 200 more due to taxes and insurance. but 200 extra a month was not as important to me as it might be for some one else who has a tighter budget. but since i made the leap definitely feel more confident navigating the entire process over again and also learned how to do some rehabbing on my own (tiling, staining, flooring, light plumbing..etc...)I also now have realistic timelines as to when certain jobs can be completed----at one time i thought I could gut and fix my kitchen and two bathrooms by myself in under 2 weeks only working weekends.