Our jobs provide some extra disposable income that we would like to apply toward investing in real estate.

I avoid Garbage disposals. 

You could at least buy yourself some time to figure out if it's worth buying once you get your things in order and have traditional financing at your disposal.

Further, tracking down npn in bulk, analyzing thousands, buying packages, reselling some, working on getting the remaining reperforming and foreclosing and then disposing of the rest is far different than analyzing two or three performing notes offered by a note broker and purchasing one or two and collecting monthly payments until they are paid off. 

I recognize that one can not take a passive loss if their income is over 150k; however, from what I have read, it states that if you dispose of/sell your rental that you can deduct the passive losses the year you sell. 

I also agree that leverage is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal.

For comparison, apartments were down -6.7%, retail down -12.3% and for a baseline the S&P 500 was down over 22%.When the economy is good, and disposable income is on the rise, people buy more “stuff” and need a place to store it.

Search the city of Cleveland's website Waste Collection and Disposal Department & you'll see that everything is very clearly spelled out. 

I figured at first, since I don't have a ton of disposable income, I would just sell the properties low enough for investors to flip them.

You find motivated sellers same way a wholesaler would, however now you are seen as a professional & you have 1,000's of other agents at your disposal to help you market for buyers.......Sound a lot better than blasting up craigslist ads & praying you sell the house in those 30 days before you loose that earnest money?