He has been saving his money for years and has plenty of money saved but no experience with real estate investing.

So I missed out on taking a year off with my wife and kids and just fully enjoying the time we could experience together. 

It depends. all you talked about was the property but financing is more about the borrower, their experience, their credit, the cash available etc.

In addition, I've helped many other investors finance their deals as a mortgage broker.I'm happy to share my experience as both an investor and lender.

I have 3 years of experience in real estate investment projects here in Dallas, TX.

One of our parks is 60% POH and in my experience the only way that park pencils as well as it does is to get through all the major repairs, get the homes 'right' and then keep them 'right'. 

@Emily Gowen so as you pointed out you would not have to do a 1031 exchange on your current home to avoid the capital gains tax and coupled with what Dave Foster pointed out I think, speaking from experience you would have a high likelihood of success. 

Working with a property manager will give you a lot of hands-on experience in the day-to-day of managing properties. 

It generally isn't worth the brain damage of experimenting though....especially if you want to move to a new home that you will own inside of the typical lender's seasoning period.

Does anyone have any experience of getting into real estate this way?