On that note, my son Jorge is actively wholesaling properties in Katy.

It sounds like you want more time, so active investing such as flipping or rehabbing might not be ideal.

PropertRadar has been a huge help in helping to identify lien position and active foreclosure auctions.

He has also played a key role in facilitating communication between the new tenants and myself, ensuring a smooth coordination of arrival times and addressing any specific needs they may have.

I also know that they "didn't know about the sale ahead of time", so I have to imagine that played a role in the lien. 

Unfortunately many lenders will see this as a red flag and may not take the risk to lend you the rest of the money even if you use stated income program or bank statement program but those are for self employed borrowers who have active income from their business but write off to many expenses that when filling their taxes their net income is really low or sometimes negative.

This comes with time and experience but a book that helped me tremendously (not really a sales book, though) was "Boundaries" by Henry Cloud.The most common challenges for RE Agents early relate to generating leads and focusing on income producing activity.I would consider spending 50-75% of your side-hustle time on income generating activities. 

Another thing to keep in mind is to make sure you have an active income to help you have more options in terms of the strategy you will use to begin investing.

Establishing a great relationship with a mentor or group that is actively doing this would be great!

So, we obtaina full credit report and review collections, chargeoffs, age of credit accounts, active accounts, etc.to build an overall credit evaluation.FICO ScorePct of PopulationDefault Probability800 or more13.00%1.00%750-79927.00%1.00%700-74918.00%4.40%650-69915.00%8.90%600-64912.00%15.80%550-5998.00%22.50%500-5495.00%28.40%Less than 4992.00%41.00%Source: Fair Isaac CompanyPublic RecordsWe also obtain data from national databases about evictions, convictions and sex-offender histories.