It somehow tastes better when you know how much "fat" you are cutting out of your life.Regarding the house I proposed moving to my wife and renting a smaller place but that was a non-starter. 

I will correct a "fat thumb" typo...

If you put a tenant in there and they are rough on the place then you just have to deal with that extra hassle next year before selling again.Yes you may not be walking away with a fat check like all of the success story flippers will, but you will likely at least be at a break even, PLUS all of the experience you got.

At the very least I'd make sure I had a big, fat, enormous reserve fund as it could take a little while for the property to stabilize.

My first local flip was very successful but that was in the good old days when finding fat deals and then selling them was easy.

That said, I'm sure you hope to live to be 59 and older, and having a big fat pile of tax sheltered income to draw from at that point in time would be a benefit, even if you have done other things to allow you to leave the rat race at an earlier age.With a self-directed IRA, you can diversify any existing savings into real estate and potentially get better results than investing in conventional financial products.  

What you'll get is a fat legal fee from some sleazey attorney, but your house still won't be sold.Third issue you raise:  option money is nonrefundable, period.  

Sometimes (like now) the deals aren't that fat.

However let’s not forget that the fat cats in Washington D.C. and beyond are the ones that created it, not me.

This is currently the track we're on which wouldn't be possible if we saddled ourselves with a fat mortgage payment not to mention having to save for the down payment.