Just make a journal with the dates, times and activities you spent on Real Estate.

I spent about 18 months listening to BiggerPockets, attending REIA meetings, reading REI books, and making offers all over the southeast before stumbling across a 3BR house in Columbia listed for $130k that I knew from Apartments.com was renting for $1,700/mo.

It certainly can't hurt, you may have to pay for a service call which the cost varies by contractor but a little spent now can save a ton of headaches later on.Most contractors around here for something like that would charge a 1 hour labor fee. 

Most likely your tax professional will going to capitalize everything you have spent as of 12/31/17.

Since it overlaps with my interest and is amazing stuff, I'm helping him it out.I share that with you so you know that I've spent a lot of time thinking about this!

They were very unhappy they had spent the money with TurboTenant and it is apparently not communicated that not all property managers/landlords will accept TurboTenant applications.

To summarizeYou have a $130k house after holding for 10 years with simple interest - More realistic of appreciating to $150-$165k in 10 yearsYou've spent $40k to get it rented with tenant turnover and sell readyThis doesn't factor monthly maintenance calls.12% closing cost(6%) and commissions(6%) to sell$165k house max- $40k renos- $18k closing cost and commissions= $7k paper profit on a $100k purchaseYou didn't pay down the loan much in the first 10 years and the PITI is considered pay to play expensesZero money to be made renting in areas where the highest and best use is to sell.

I just spent the last 2 hours doing exactly this for an upcoming sale in my area.

I've spent a good amount of time scanning the market on Zillow and Trulia to get a sense for the price range. 

As for studying, I spent most of my time focusing on the sections that had the most amount of questions.