Having something like that happen can certainly throw your world into a tail spin and now that the storm has passed he is likely stable again.

After spinning my wheels on the MLS looking for my first duplex house-hack (that could cashflow even a little bit), I've changed my strategy and am considering going through a wholesaler. 

I feel Like I am spinning my wheels.

But for Contractors & Wholesalers Codebox is the only non spin dial option i have seen.

With an REO, there are additional REO addendums, 4-6 pages, modifying the state contract3) the bank/owner of an REO will/van Never deal with you direct, whether the property is listed or not, especially when it is listed.4) an REO will Never accept your offer without a Legit POF in Your name if you are the buyer on the contract5) REO contracts are Never assignableIf you don’t know these things you are just spinning your wheels and wasting everyone’s time

@Arianna Thompson I agree with Brian's list above (here is my spin on creating an aligned plan).  1. 

I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels here because there are SO many avenues to travel down it is very easy to get off track and feel discouraged.  

But I don't normally think of Providence & RI as a growing economy, it's more of an overflow/bedroom community to the tech & startup growth in Boston (in my mind anyway).Politicians would probably be very familiar with which new businesses (if any) are coming into the are, but they tend to spin everything (omitting negative data, if already in office, or omitting positive data if challenging someone already in office),Providence Business News is a great resource for this kind of question, though it may usually be too granular to answer the bigger picture type of question you're asking.

That's a lot of time for the economy to take a spin in the wrong direction and the gameplan to not go accordingly. 

Yeah we all might have a different spin on what type of investments and locations are best, but that is not what I stated.