Trails and forest behind the house, brand new gutters, 2 year old water heater, 3 year old A/C. 2 car garage with large, built in work bench.

Give it time and that pot will grow and you will have a downpayment.Hope this works out.

double closing is allowed in NC but would have to be separate pots of money and treated as two separate transactions. is this correct?

Problem is its a large pot of money the state borrows from for any shortfall, and somehow they never have repaid what they borrowed over the decades. 

It feels like the gold rush, everyone marking their listings up 20 to 30% hoping some out of stater comes and buys them to grow pot, cash in hand.

As a buyer, you pay no commissions so why not add the bench strength.Congrats on what you've achieved already. 

It depends on your end goals but there have been quite a few hands in the pot from sale to sale so I wouldn't expect a homerun deal in most cases.

I remember having no kitchen, a microwave/fridge/coffee pot and that was it for a couple months with a newborn. 

As a buyer, you pay no commissions so why not add the bench strength and make your first deal the best deal possible.And, congrats on getting started...it's a wild market out here but it's a great place to invest.

Those all get your set up for success and are focused on RE.Most agents fail because they are looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow first, but never set up mindset and systems to help them grow to get there.