It is at this stage that financially, the COOPs are at the most dangerous.

This is the stage where I face the greatest risk of being stillborn.

At this stage of your life, you need a combination of liquidity and appreciation.

We have not even found our first deal yet and are truly in the infancy stages of our venture.

Also, you are much more likely to find private money to recapitalize at this stage than a collateral assignment.

bank owned are tough... they go through SOOO many stages and long time spans before they finally take that offer. 

I currently work In the RAN (Royal Australian Nay) but within the next 2 months i'm going back to my prior AMAZING job (which sadly pays a little less as an outdoor educational instructor) Eventually i'd like to get to a stage where i'm pocketing enough through investment properties that my day job's income doesn't really matter and i can continue working where i love.I have just finished reading the Ultimate Beginner's Guide To Real Estate Investing which has given me plenty of ideas and as you can imagine even more questions.

Investing out of state is definitely a viable option (most of our clients live outside of AL), but just know that you'll need to put in extra legwork during your research and vetting stage. 

Throughout the assignment, Bryan walked me through each stage of the process so I had an understanding as to what would protect my basement.

In fact, I believe those very lessons have helped me in these early stages of building a Real Estate business.