It’s nice to have a million dollar property I didn’t pay for as part of my retirement plan… ;)Makes sense.

I'm starting to look at Reno/Lake Tahoe which is about a 4 hour drive and Las Vegas but my goals are different from yours - I would buy this house to rent out and in the future, move into it as a primary when I decide to retire/semi-retire (Nevada has no state income tax unlike CA).

I love being able to turn personal properties into rentals as they required a small amount of cash for a large asset to have someone else paying off.It really depends on your long term goal, but ours is to use these "retirements baskets" into reasons that early retirement at 44 is successful! 

If you are headed into retirement, my way would still be way safer than your plan.

People who have money may prefer to seller finance but if someone is retiring they most likely don’t care about a higher sales price they want to avoid the riskYou mention ou have a 100% close rate - then why not just buy it was traditional financing if you really want the deal?

You may have to sell the whole property to access the funds in the IRA or 401k when you retire. 

Does it make sense to use your HELOC or borrow from your retirement funds to purchase a high risk property?

Sometimes they will contact me directly when they are getting closer to retirement and decide to downsize some of their holdings.

I guess I'd have to get a hard money loan or DSR since I don't have W2 income (I'm retired), and my DTI ratio is too high. 

RE is a get rich slow game and there are increasing number of people talking about how difficult it is to retire from your day job even with large numbers of rentals because cash flow is thin.On the one hand there is the Small But Mighty portfolio mentality which I believe is a book in the BP store by Chad Carson.