My wife and I are very excited about this opportunity and we have decided that we want to focus on 2-4 unit multi-family investments with the occasional SFH for buy and hold purposes.

Sure I have strong opinions, and occasionally I am forcefully and publicly WRONG.

For me, the benefits that make it worth it are...1) Credibility with sellers, buyers etc.2) MLS access3) The option to list the occasional property if I want and earn extra cash through a comission4) Not having to rely on a realtor for  realtor related tasks like gaining access to properties for sale.

I fix and flip and occasionally hold and rent.

As I understand, all rents are considered to be part of your income, in a way or two, so if you live rent free with an occasional handyman work, i think that will work out best for you, being 23 & 21.  

Even though we has a good amount of savings, I was loathe to touch it because I didn't have a consistent way of making it grow (banks pay less than 1% and stocks are too volatile to count on stable growth).Now, with over a dozen buy and holds that cash flow well and some other passive income sources (dividends and notes), I feel less qualms about splurging occasionally because I know the passive income more than pays for it.

I think I would forward a video to PM occasionally so that when I ask about my property they better assume I have others eyes on the case and I already know the answer to my question

Sometimes a local investor might take an interest in a new investor but even then their time is valuable so they might can answer the occasional question but if someone wants constant help they do not typically have time for that.

We never did a $60k loan anywhere....we raised $25k through GF and I expected to put in the rest, if any.The property was always secured with the exception of a rear bath window that was broken into occasionally probably by someone looking for a place to get out of the weather.  

Zillow numbers aren't always accurate but I occasionally check out the current Zillow value to just give me an idea of where it might be.