These jobs are often business graduate students that gets      ~ $15 bucks a hour in Silicon Valley and a bonus for successful deal making.

I'll be sure to mention your name to get that referral bonus for you. 

You've been more than generous already.In the future, you may want to consider sticking with a one-year lease and hefty fines for early termination.

The way I see it is the rentals I am looking to purchase will generate cash-flow and any appreciation is a bonus.

Thanks to all for your generous advice on these forums!

I currently have a full time job where I receive pretty decent bonuses and RSU's so long term I'd like to use that income for RE investing but it will probably be at least a year or two before I can do that because I'll probably use that income this year to buy a house for my family.So short term my idea was to move the money in my Betterment account to a self directed IRA.

If everything goes to plan I then use this 10% to give me and the contractor a small bonus at the sale of the house. 

The front house was a 3 bed / 2 bath with a bonus room (1100sqft) and the back house was a 2 bed 2 bath (800sqft).

As a bonus, this is a much better time of year to be finding tenants  vs.

Sure you could stumble across a generous 70 year old guy who will seller finance the whole deal but larger properties come with a larger price and a lot bigger down payment.