Then you eventually get good enough to support a family and you don't have any exhausting corporate ladder determining your income and future.

Based solely on your criteria, research areas that support that goal.

The agent should have 100% command of such a situation and be advising you for directions and options, with supporting information.

Just obsess over it.Once you get a base of education you will be able to decide which niche you would like to pursue (house flipping, wholesaling, long term rentals, short term rentals, commercial, etc).When you pick your niche, then you can start networking and building a team who will be able to support you in your business.

I think keeping the wood panels would be justified from an economical perspective, but I always try to think whether I would rent such a unit (which is why my instinct is telling me to replace with drywall though the economics support keeping the wood panels.

You'll get a jolt of clients from the agent, and confidence in the numbers you're running since you have the other agent as your back end support.

For any other requests, you can directly call their customer support portal, which always get connected during their operation hours (6am - 6pm PST, 7days a week), according to my experience.

I am recently divorced and paying both spousal and child support, so my income has been cut roughly in half.

Many of these assets won't have enough margin to support the debt service and will be forced to sell at a discount. 

I can't imagine myself stop buying until my cash flow supports my life style by 2 or 3x.