I wouldn't worry about artificial goals set by the internet, just focus on what reasonable for you. 

And this is a survey of locks, not closings, so the folks promising the world but unable to deliver artificially drag that line down a bit.)

I have a self-directed 401K (solo 401k), and purchasing real estate for buy and hold.However, I would like to grow it by taking after tax dollars (W2) and issuing myself a promissory note of 50K but instead of doing “minimum” payments of prime + 1%, could I artificially increase it to say prime + 5%?

Paying down a mortgage is creating artificial cash flow and is not "investing".

Builder creating speculation and artificial inflation.2.

The cap rate and reversion cap rate was manipulated to artificially raise the total returns up by 30%.

Keep in mind that dead equity is the most expensive route to purchasing artificial cash flow.

The appraisal is artificially high, so I'm getting good money from it.2.

Your time and efforts have value, and if you gift such value to the IRA by performing services, you are effectively making un-documented contributions to the IRA and artificially magnifying the tax sheltering, which is why this is prohibited.The alternatives in the NPN space are to joint venture with other parties or use some kind of a note broker who is doing the workouts.

Don't get me wrong, I've closed a few of these (in these cases the appraisal report came back only a bit different from what the agent/buyer described), and had a bunch die after the appraisal came back (when the report is VASTLY different from what the agents/buyer said to me, which is the norm), but due to systemic unreliability of information my position is that the price of a definitive yes/no is an FHA appraisal fee.Make sure you're working with a lender that isn't artificially restrictive, get it under contract, and get an appraisal going.