Well, it all sounded good: small notes of about $10,000 to $20,000, which means there is not only a low barrier to entry for a beginner, but you can more quickly roll the proceeds into another note, which allows for faster compounding of returns.

I got 17 calls with solid information and have spoken to 5.  3 out of the 5 are listed with an agent currently.  1 has been on the MLS forever and will expire at the end of the month, so I'll put the full court press on May 1st.2 calls have already bowed out (one house is in a Life-Trust(?)

I bring the 770 account up because it allowed me to lock in a base at 4% compounding annual-variable-rate on the funds I sourced from my IRA account and it allows me to make unquestioned loans on the cash balance (I had a significant lump sum which required a policy rider to keep the amount of insurance purchased at a minimum while making as much cash value available to me to borrow against.

It sounds like Texas and California are different enough, I better bow out of advice. 

That will leave you with an exit strategy to bow out gracefully if the property needs more work than you originally thought,

Hello,My name is Tim Negulici and I currently attend BGSU (bowing green/ Toledo Ohio ) and have lived here for about 5 years.

I also recommend "The Compound Effect" by Darren Hardy and "The Motivation Manifesto" by Brandon Burchard.

The follow on conversations will always end up about the VA loan and how they can use it for make free money, at the same time you can also use your GI Bill, the compounding return of those two benefits is amazing.

I'm looking at 30+% compounding returns over the lat few years.

50% return that takes over 5 years to get, is actually more like a 8.45% annual compounded rate of return.