I am a software engineer, but have consumed ton of material and contents over past 6 months. 

However, these are complex investment vehicles which require in-depth understanding from you, as you reverse-engineer the offering to assess risk/reward.

My career is in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, so I am experienced developing software.

Haven't purchased a property yet while having a good paying job as an engineer.

Collect rents every month.Year 2:Rezone the site to 10.0FSR, cost $100k in architect, engineer, environment and city fees.Year 3:Land zoning can now allow approx eighty 1-bd condos to be built and sold at $300k each.

I contacted a few civil engineering companies but their proposals for the drainage plan are too expensive.

Definitely, not somewhere one of my peers would stay (fresh engineer from college).

With my structure I have almost eliminated my turnover by using some social engineering to find a tenant that is a long term tenant and not someone looking to move To the next place that is cheaper than my place.  

if you live and work in the same area you can buy C class then its a calculated risk you wont know if you like it until you try it.. nicer properties are easier to manage generally speaking.. only way prices drop for rentals is usually loss of job in the area and high vacancy or tough to manage tenant base investor suffers landlord burn out and dumps them.. or rents decrease.. 

What if you are hospitalized, need long term care services, need to burn through your emergency funds, etc.