Hearing stuff about "Lehman Brothers", "Bernie Madoff", and stories from a  a co-worker during college who has been trying to retire since 2000 (but failed due to losing money the dot-com crash, Enron, and the "Great recession") made me skeptical of investment "experts."

, and arrive to NOI.

From there you can arrive at a price.

Nine of which are vacation rentals in which no one but I, handle all aspects for renting, collection of rents, reservations, contact after they arrive, etc.....

It took 2 months on market and I were so scare market crashed at that time but needs to hold 2 years to get tax free gains as primary residence

Chris Dodd and Barney Frank - retired senators from CT and MA I think who sponsored a bill after the financial crash in 2008 which implements a number of regulations that impact lenders.  

I use a state and federally licensed RMLO so I am SPECIFICALLY complying with both state and federal regulations.I was a licensed loan officer until I gave it up during the crash as it was a waste of a license when no one wanted to buy. 

The 12% can be just as passive as your offered 8%, because those "2% Rule" followers have already allowed for cap ex, vacancy, property management and so on to arrive at their net 12% return.

My first was a fixer-upper that we owned for 7 years and sold for a good profit about 3 minutes before the real estate market crashed in our area.

, you can take the 9 day crash course at ASREB, which will be the most time consuming part of becoming an agent.