Overall I think I’ve done everything humanly possible to hide/distract but I don’t have any way of hiding his big garbage cans on the front lawn.  

At least one other thing you should consider before starting is your office location that has the least distractions and convenience.  

In my opinion if you have one foot in SFH's and the other in multi's you could become distracted and discouraged very quickly.

Getting my license definitely would NOT be the best use of my time as it would be a temporary distraction taking me from what I love most...investing.Thanks SO  MUCH for your advise and book recommendations!

Another thing you might want to consider is having your financing figured out and receive a loan letter that you can copy and include with your offers to make the sellers more comfortable with you and your ability to close.Another thing you ought to do is to locate an office that is convenient and few distractions.  

You can think of the benefits to your finances, (vacancy filled sooner= more money), family life (you can be focused when on vacation with family and not be distracted by what you still need to do when you get home), mental/ emotional state (the guilt, it can really eat you up), and other areas of your life.

Make sure that your passive income is enough to cover losses at first during the startup of the restaurant, as you will (most likely) take a loss at first as you purchase the property, stock items, staffing, etc.Also, consider starting with property management early in your scaling up of rentals, since you will probably want to focus on the new business - I'm sure that a few people forget about this, and end up getting derailed or distracted because they have to worry about the rentals as well as the business.Other than that, I have no real experience doing what you want to do.

If not, just go find some deals and don't get distracted by the advertising.

He would most likely see involvement with you as a distraction from his own business.

This way, you won’t get distracted or overwhelmed.