Here’s the situation:Purchase Price: $540,000Down Payment: 20%Mortgage Rate: 7.125% (30-year fixed)Monthly Expenses (Mortgage, HOA, Taxes, Insurance): $3,706Realistic Max Rent: $3,000As you can see, I’m currently short $706/month even with max rent.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency cannot be used as a down payment in a traditional mortgage (Conv, FHA, VA, USDA). 

This means my wife and I could potentially manage up to 20 mortgages together before moving into commercial real estate financing.

True, but (a) they were typically experienced investors, and (b) today's market includes record prices and high mortgage rates, which is a double whammy. 

that we’ve learned in our 24 years, managing almost 700 doors across the Metro Detroit area, including almost 100 S8 leases:Class A Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, 3-5 years for positive cashflow, but you get highest relative rent & value appreciation.Vacancy Est: Historically 10%, 5% the more recent norm.Tenant Pool: Majority will have FICO scores of 680+ (roughly 5% probability of default), zero evictions in last 7 years.Class B Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, decent amount of relative rent & value appreciation.Vacancy Est: Historically 10%, 5% should be applied only if proper research done to support.Tenant Pool: Majority will have FICO scores of 620-680 (around 10% probability of default), some blemishes, but should have no evictions in last 5 yearsClass C Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, high cashflow and at the lower end of relative rent & value appreciation.

Hardly anyone can prep properly, mask or dropcloth properly, cut in around trim and windows, get even coverage, etc. 

Picking up flexible part-time jobs to qualify for a mortgage is definitely a smart move, as conventional lenders typically look for consistent W2 income.

With enough knowledge you can make a educated decision on which approach you take.My experience:I personally don't sign up for any program who take you aside during events and try to sell packages that is just blatant sales strategy.Once you sign up there is every attempt to make you sign for their programs for bookkeeping, registered agent, LLC or corp setup fee which have ridiculous even with platinum membership.Basic standard structure they suggest to take advantage of multiple deductions can be easily achieved by proper education or work with a good firm like https://wcginc.com  who is local to you.A umbrella C-crop to manage all other LLC properties and take advantage of many tax deductions that are not available with a llc, its also used to take losses up to 100K as startup expenses and dissolve the entity after few years.Few LLC entities for investing in Real Estate, etc preferably in Wyoming or Nevada ( you can find many companies online who can do this for $150 compared to anderson $1500-$3000) , they will claim they have a secret Operating agreement which is bogus.They certainly try to take advantage of tax loopholes and claim to be smart people, my view they are just taking advantage of numbers as per their own statements.

My biggest conundrum now is I want to be my own GC because even when I play with smaller numbers they’re still out of reach for me to be able to attain this goal and afford the monthly mortgage with taxes and insurance.

But, the self-sufficiency test for FHA loans can be really difficult in SF, meaning that the market rent from units you will not occupy must be sufficient to pay for the mortgage payment.