There are opinions on these forums and people have a right to them and people may take it as criticism. real estate is not a business where everyone is friendly and just as you have shown from whoever was trying to scam you and has nothing to do with doing your best, its about being educated before moving forward. 

There is no shortage of realtors excited to give you their take on the market there.

Having a long-term rental while living abroad is do-able.Flipping houses while abroad, in my opinion, more difficult, especially if its your first go around with real estate.I would recommend taking a flight and staying in the area for a week and inspect the neighborhoods and make connections.You can reach out to @Elenis Camargo who has a PM company in Jacksonville.Best of luck though.

I'm curious when you were planning commissioner, how long did these land swap deals take to hammer out?

Hire an attorney to handle this, or it'll cost more and take longer than necessary.

Quote from @Adam Macias: Wholesaling as it is today will be a thing of the past.It’ll truly be strange to even hear people and gurus trying to make big money off it.The more people try wholesaling but then end up not having an end buyer or cancelling contracts or trying weird things like novations, the more all of real estate will be regulated and cause requirements like licensing to be able to transact more than just your personal resident purchase.Which I don't know why hasn't happened sooner.Here's all the states (in red or yellow) requiring a license to wholesale or at least have started the process:Credit: REITipsterI think licensing and regulation is a beautiful thing that should happen if you plan to be an wholesaler and do more than one deal... which is going to be the case for anyone taking this business seriously.Or even it being regulated to need a real estate agent to do more than one deal outside of buying a personal residence.I've had plenty of failed attempts with agents in pursuit of wholesale deals and I know exactly why, it's not because the agent couldn't find me deals, it's just not practical to think there's opportunity for the numbers a wholesaler needs to make a profit on top of everyone else needing to these days.Because the only sellers who truly can sell at a deep enough discount are usually those who ran out of time and just didn't do something sooner with their situation.I know many coaches and gurus will disagree with me but there’s no regulations on youtube gurus and what they teach either.If we look at the current state of the market in hot cities, the availability of online resources to the average homeowner, how many deals can you possibly believe are available at 70% of ARV?

takes way too many steps to set up anything, terrible user experience. 

I'm guessing though that since the IRA owner isn't allowed to take out a salary, perhaps the SDIRA LLC will be required to hire employees? 

It takes time but worth it.How do you plan to finance your first property—are you looking at traditional loans, or have you considered other options like house hacking?

I have been reading books and listening to podcasts for almost a year now and I know I need to take action.