It's not hard, but I would invest in education for now.Good luck buddy.

My investments have been acquired and managed by my buddy my accountant, who has 250 doors. 

@Mark Poulton - I have to admit their current track record is grim (crash with a different school-buddy each night); however (at the expense of preaching 'too big to fail'), they are now the largest component of the American workforce (Gen X parents - what were you thinking with all those kids!?!?).

Cheers,Buddy

Hey buddy, I'm also new to Real Estate.

But it seems unlikely that I will find a property in Southern California for that price range.My other military buddies who buy in the 200,000 range have a better shot at using their 2nd tier entitlement for a 2nd home in the future seeing as they have another 200 something thousand left to use on another primary residence. 

I think the biggest thing that other miss, maybe including @Bill Gulley and probably including my good buddy @Aaron Mazzrillo Is planning for Life Events occuring to the note holder later and transactioneering terms that provide opportunities to renegotiate certain aspects of the debt later. 

Those three conversions, along with a 10k contingency accounts for about 65k of that 140k (along with manual labor from me and buddies to remove the stucco). 

You could rent out extra rooms to buddies/co workers and actually make money each month off rents.

Of course if you had a realtor buddy you could ask him and he an get it to you.