If you are tight on cash, or don't have infinite, you'll most likely find that connecting and leveraging HML will help you grow quicker and down the line you may want to keep more of those deals in house.

Your time as an investor is infinitely better spent analyzing markets and deals.

If anyone has links to good blogs, any calculating tools, any advice from personal experience, or any other means that might help me map out this plan, I would be infinitely appreciative!

If you get all of your cash back and then some when you cash out, your ROI is infinite!

Sure, you get leads and listings but those don't make any money until they're sold and some markets are much more rewarding than others.I would by far rank direct mail as THE BEST source of leads because it is almost infinitely scalable.

The more challenging, and infinitely more useful question is, how in broad strokes do we both categorize different types of lenders, as well as effectively regulate them.

The experience gained by doing a project or 2 with that $50,000 is infinitely more valuable

Fortunately, for the experienced investor, there are infinite ways to make money in RE.  

If you buy off the shelf laminate counter tops from a big box it's much closer to $10 sf.  

It is marked on the shelf but nothing sitting on the shelf there.