Using market rates (and not current rents) artificially raises the NOI.  

I wouldn't worry about artificial goals set by the internet, just focus on what reasonable for you. 

If you are going to develop into a full time professional real estate investor you are going to have to develop emotional intelligence along with everything else.

They are also a convenient way to prove I am intelligent enough to learn new things like medical device regulations or commercial real estate sales practices. 

Please, as a complete newbie, what can you intelligent folks recommend as far as where to begin.

And this is a survey of locks, not closings, so the folks promising the world but unable to deliver artificially drag that line down a bit.)

For books there’s always the basics; - Rich dad poor dad - landlording on autopilot I also recommend; - The Richest man in Babylon - The intelligent Investor Good luck!

If you spend time crafting intelligent emails/responses, they will take you seriously.

I have a self-directed 401K (solo 401k), and purchasing real estate for buy and hold.However, I would like to grow it by taking after tax dollars (W2) and issuing myself a promissory note of 50K but instead of doing “minimum” payments of prime + 1%, could I artificially increase it to say prime + 5%?

They regrettably are also often of a lower class due primarily to level of intelligence.