I've been reading and researching aggressively about RE, and the information is massive! 

Kill them with kindness and the best response is massive success!

I know it's tempting because you're "guaranteed massive wealth" as long as you take the guru course and take "massive action" to steal granny's only asset for a few bucks to sell for twice as much.

Paid list price as it was massively discounted.

In my experience the $30-35 per square foot does INCLUDE cost of BASIC land prep (thing grass field to gravel lot) but would not include massive site leveling or cost of land.  

Nothing makes real estate investing easier than a massive salary and lots of excess cash.

You can avoid massive headaches and costly mistakes through some of the advice and experience on here, there’s plenty of pitfalls we made that you can avoid by reading and asking questions. 

But in the context of this conversation about massive uncertainty, once the unthinkable happens, whether one's head is in the sand or up their ***, it doesn't matter much.

Short of the NOLA metro area, a massive portion of LA is considered rural enough to be eligible under that program, and has a few extra features that the FHA loans don't, most significantly is 100% finance option (zero down payment), but also can support new builds, such as you picking some land, dropping in septic and well, and then building a new home (or placing a permanently attached mobile), additionally, while there is a PMI requirement, the rate for the PMI is lower than FHA's requirements.Also, check out LHC below, as they may additionally throw in some dollars towards your purchase, regardless of if you use FHA, USDA or Conventional, so you might be able to get them to cover a good chunk or all of your closing costs.

The goal is to spend the next couple of years massively reducing your monthly expenses, thus massively increasing your net income.