Time and time again we see flippers who are cutting corners, hiring unlicensed contractors, and don't have a paper trail from their projects.Why is this so important?

I feel like i am in this awkward in the middle stage where I still need to work my corporate job, but right on the cusp to make real estate my fulltime job.   

I'm always a bit suspect of full-time paid mentors and people pushing courses.

He claims others want to make an offer, but unless it's a full cash buyer (which is rare in our small town), I doubt they’d be able to close faster than us.I’m getting the sense that he may not actually want to sell, and this whole process is just a way for him to tell his wife that no one could buy it.

So a sponsor that's great for one investor will probably be terrible for another (and vice versa).I'm a conservative investor, so when I invest in multi-family I prefer sponsors that have at least one full real-estate cycle of experience (which sounds similar to your post), little to no money lost, low leverage, and high skin in the game.And there is an apartment operator that has multiple real estate cycles of experience (decades) with no money lost, low 65% less LTV, and high 10%+ skin in the game.They market under 506B so are prohibited from posting publicly on the Internet and instead function by referrals.

I currently rent and am very frugal , no debt, drive a used car, have a roth ira etc  I have an opportunity to get a 1980 4 bed 4 bath ranch duplex ,full basement , one car garage per side,, new roof, original mechanicals duplex from a family member off market in a solid B to B+ area/country setting 1.5 miles outside of east side of city of 150k people.

Once you land on the right PM, transition everything to them.As others have stated, four houses is not a big task.

During that time we were able to save more money and our budget went up.

@Jimmy O'Connor time for an update!

If your wife wants to go part time quickly then you want to get that squared away first.