I am in Australia so it may be different for you but I imagine not by much. 

I am currently in Australia but have lived in the South pretty much all my life.

I'm actually not in Houston now, I'm traveling fulltime, currently in Australia, but BP forced me to put something, so I used my parents' address. 

I invest in multiple markets (Chicago, Cleveland and Australia) and thou it may seem bias I have seen the entry price of a home compared to the rents I'm able to attain you CAN NOT BEAT. 

I have been living in Melbourne, Australia for the last two years.

I’m a Houstonian; however, I’ve lived in Miami, NYC, South Korea, and Sydney, Australia - no I wasn’t in the military.

We in Australia are suffering now from your sub-prime meltdown and it is starting to cause a lot of pain, but from what I read not quite as much as in your country.As property investors we are conflicted aren't we?

We have contracts for over here (in Australia) but they do vary slightly from State to State - possibly the same in the US, but your legal people should be able to advise on that.You can get access to US standard option contracts, again that may need to be modified to suit your deal, as part of the package available at my website.

I'm an investor from Australia, seeking to begin investing in the USA shortly, so excuse me if my questions seems naive.

:D Here in Australia, it's true that it's been historically difficult to get realtors to present an owner-financed deal to the vendors in such a way that it's likely to be accepted.