Given your situation, my advice would be to focus on your career and increasing your salary. it can be at your current place of employment or going to another one. your wife should focus on hers as well. simultaneously, cut out any unnecessary expenditures. obviously you would want to kick out your aunt, but that is between you and your wife. if you cannot kick her out, she should be told that she must collect disability to contribute to the household.investing in real estate should not be on your radar right now until you get your own financial house in order. once you do that, consider saving up and purchasing a duplex/triplex using an FHA 3.5% down loan. live in it and rent out the other units. that's where I would begin if I was you.

Clayton there is a Paul Simon song   50 ways to lose your lover.. well in rehabbing houses there is 50 ways to lose your money.Even though you may get some savings on materials with a builder account like we do.. the real savings is in labor and doing the job right the first time and time efficiency.. if your rehabbing lets say 20 to 30 homes simultaneously  IE pretty standard production line for a above average turn key outfit.. the homes are in various stages of course..

The property was free and clear and you put $30K in his bank account while simultaneously helping rid of a liability for him.

Back in my newbie days I simultaneously put in 14 offers for an "investor" that had the capability of closing on exactly 0.

Tom, I myself am also a new investor and am currently in the middle of 2 property flips (I was doing three simultaneously but just sold my first one last week).

The underwriters are requiring that the title company report ANY requests for simultaneous closings for additional review.

A wet closing refers to a deal that is funded with your own funds (or that of your own borrowed funds) to close a transaction.A dry closing refers to a deal where you use an end buyer's funds to close your transaction, then the second transaction closes.Example:A=Your seller (usually a bank short sale or REO)B=YouC=Your end buyerFirst the A-B transaction must close, then the B-CIn a wet funding, you bring the cash to close the A-B, then you close the B-C.In a dry closing (also called a simultaneous closing), you would use the C buyers funds to close the A-B transaction, then the B-C closes on very same day.Dry closings are harder and harder to complete these days as most title companies no longer allow them and new rules/guidelines from banks also prohibit them.

Most times I actually do a simultaneous closing since I'm paying the tax anyway.

Don't forget, the same team will assess your property for heat pumps, simultaneously.  

@Stanley Bronstein  The title company I spoke to did offer to do assigned contracts(with full disclosure) but they wouldn't do a double/simultaneous close(two escrows) A-B and B-C type transaction.