The non-recourse lender was actually the original seller who was financing - GEG was the middleman making a HUGE markup.

I'd say just start your search with all 2-4 unit properties, and when you find one where the numbers make sense and it checks your other boxes (somewhere you actually want to live and house hack), then it probably makes sense. 

Memphis can actually be a great choice for real estate investing, especially for someone with your situation.First off, property prices in Memphis are much more affordable compared to markets like CA, so with $50k, you can actually make a bigger impact.

I am the owner actually.

When it comes to actual execution, I have to sell those stocks and then pay that towards the escrow.

He wanted to ask me tons of questions to see if I was a good fit but wouldn't answer any of my questions when it came down to how much the program costs or what I was actually getting as a member. 

I’ve never actually been legally owed money before so I was green on how to handle things while trying to be understanding and respecting other lifestyles and career choices.

It's a fairly unregulated space (charging grandma $750 to puts around for 3 hours, after moving the old box from the horizontal sensor, which was the only problem with the garage door to begin with), so some combination of carefully reading reviews (you have to actually read them to make sure it's not 200 fake reviews), and maybe not giving them the full contract all at once, is in order. 

I recommend you figure out what you want to do, then actually do it to see if you enjoy it, have some skills, etc.

The guests have a credit card on file and your policy should allow you to charge for damages or excessive cleaning.