Newbies like myself find encouragement when hearing best practices.

Sounds simple in theory, but in practice each building has its own quirks and no 2 are alike.  

But then practically speaking who's willing to spend that much money and take that much time on something that could still be a crap shoot.Now having said all that, because the home was built circa '20's you may be able to get your local historical society interested in the project.

I would add to: research what the disadvantages are having a real estate license while practicing as a real estate investor.

Against me is playing the fact that I have been "learning" too much for too long in REI with no practical experience.

But, I can say a lot of unethical practices happen all time with realtors.

I have the theory but lack the practical.

We do so through many methods but some examples are being a licensed brokerage, hiring people with education and experience, streamlining our processes and procedures, staying consistent with property output, practicing respect and integrity with clients, staying on top of the changing r/e laws, and probably most important- we stay on top of current market data in order to have an educated and in depth understanding of our market. 

Love to learn this stuff and don't want to fall into those similar pitfalls- I'm also really practical so if I saw these numbers in advance (regardless of playing market appreciation I dont know if I would have done the same deal).  

I've always known I wanted to be one of the people that work smarter, not harder, but I didn't know how to achieve that practically.