A diplomat is interested; but I am not sure about renting to such applicant due to immunity concern(you cannot evict such tenant, etc). 

We are in a financial crisis and I am the only source of income for my family.

Remember this was 2009 in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis, and everyone was getting laid off or working their rear off in fear of getting canned. 

I even have a client who is a diplomat from a foreign country and he owns properties here in the U.S. while working as a diplomat.

Welcome to BP.And your initial deposit has been earning you ~$35k per year on average ever since - despite the diversion of a global financial crisis in the middle of that!

And much of the opportunities that were present in the last few years were caused by the rapid depreciation during the housing crisis. 

There are still a lot of homes that were caught up in the housing crisis that need rehab, and Tampa and Orlando are expected to continue to grow. 

Lots of great meetups can be found at meetup.com and mines is in my signature link below.http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/2...Tom and others please bring up the New AB 1506 bill to dramtically increase rent control in cities.Amid California’s housing crisis, several state lawmakers want to give cities the right to dramatically increase rent control , including imposing and expand the kind of strict limits that exist in SF, LA Santa Monica and West Hollywood but have been barred since the 1990s.

However, this clause has not been paid attention to since the housing crisis.  

Also, the crisis was so severe, your Lines would have been automatically closed and you would have no access to that Line anymore.So I moved the money into the Stock Market / Bond.For the inevitable crash, I placed some in US Bonds and some in safe stocks with PUTs (hedges against a down fall) in place, protecting the money taken out from the lines.To make a long story short, I was in very good shape to pick up a new property because I had the cash available while a lot of investors did not.I could only have done that by utilizing the Stock Market.An Investment Vehicle with only Real Estate is hard to steer.