Was able to just do a cosmetic renovation inside but the waist high Canadian thistle in the backyard still gives me nightmares.

The waist-high Canadian thistle still gives me nightmares.

However here are some suggestions:Partner with an experienced flipper where you provide some of the money and they teach you what they know.Buy a duplex or sfr and house hackBuy a duplex/sfr in a lower priced area (inland empire high desert) and rent it out.Good luck 

How do you start your empire?

I self manage our rentals (we had been using Empire but I want happy with their services) and use Cozy to run background/credit along with all the paperwork.

I can also keep track of other data such as AC filter size, trash day, Magistrate for each property etc.I have a summary tab that pulls in from the categories on each tab to this one central location where it sums up all the properties so I can see the big picture of gross and net income from the Real Estate Empire.