Planning on joining and using the contacts there to help me move forward faster. 

If you buy in a location where prices and rents are rising faster than the inflation rate, you will be able to buy the same set of goods because you will have the additional dollars you need from increased rents.

That will take you farther and faster than the books.  

From what I hear, day trading is a lot harder, you have to be more educated, and you can lose your wad a lot faster.

That's part of the reason I'm looking at putting a syndicate together - to enhance the ability to scale faster and generate more passive income and reach financial independence quicker

Maybe if you share your work around other folks will reciprocate faster. 

I just feel like this could be a strategy to to scale faster, without putting as much of your money down and avoiding PMI.  

Not only do they do it better, they do it much faster.

If you want to pay for the investment and wait for rents to give you a +CF and ride the appreciation yes appreciation does build wealth faster than CF. 

I was going along the house-hack/Nomad strategy with single family houses in north Denver for a couple years until I realized I wanted to go faster and decided to invest in multifamily properties.