I would certainly encourage you to begin interviewing more banks about their "in house" or "portfolio" loan products.  

I'd encourage you to find an agent that understands real estate investing and have them set you up on searches with the keywords "motivated" "seller carry" "lease option purchase"If you are playing at the auction then you are swimming with sharks - even the savviest of investor would be outmatched for the guy's doing it day in and day out in that arena.

Society as a whole seems to have a tough time learning.  

Encouraging to see young guys getting after it.

Hi @Jaysen Medhurst - Thank you for the words of encouragement and the suggestions.

m=9&y=17&utm_source=HAR%2FMLS+Master+List&utm_campaign=37e6c93251-January+2017+MLS+Release&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5c0a7c027d-37e6c93251-252424337Houston Real Estate Highlights in August, 2017: Hurricane Harvey ended ten consecutive months of positive single-family home sales, as volume plunged 25.4 percent year-over-year with 5,917 units sold;Despite Harvey’s rampage, single-family home sales remain 1.8 percent ahead of the 2016 volume on a year-to-date basis;Total property sales dropped 24.2 percent with 7,077 units sold;Total dollar volume fell 22.2 percent to $2.0 billion;The single-family home median price rose 3.0 percent to $231,700;The single-family home average price increased 2.6 percent to $296,418;Single-family homes months of inventory grew to a 4.4-months supply, but is expected to shrink with strong consumer demand for housing in the wake of Harvey;Townhome/condominium sales dropped 31.4 percent, with the average price down 1.1 percent to $196,230 and the median price up 2.0 percent to $159,000;Leases of single-family homes rose 9.4 percent with average rent unchanged at $1,857;Volume of townhome/condominium leases jumped 17.0 percent with average rent down 2.2 percent to $1,551;HAR continues to encourage anyone who has housing available for temporary occupancy (up to 12 weeks) to please post it on our Harvey Temporary Housing page as soon as possible at www.har.com/temporaryhousing to provide housing to those in need.

I've been in a country where nobody can own real estate.But the best of all was Turks and Caicos, where there is no income tax, no capital gains tax, no real estate tax and no inheritance or estate taxes, if that doesn't encourage real estate investing, I don't know what will.

Plus, a lot of firms are taking a stance against dual agency and "encouraging" their brokers to refer the other side to a colleague, for a referral fee (this is what we typically do up here in Bellingham).  

I'm encouraged you like the second option as well -- I may still go that route after meeting with her in person tomorrow to feel it out a bit more. 9 months out is a bit of a bummer, but with this location I have hope it will still have legs by then!

I told her if she knows that on the owner dashboard, even when instant booking is on, their platform prints pop-ups or big highlighted messages encouraging the hosts to activate instant booking and get more bookings.