Though I still have most of them as 3 are being sent to the UK and the pups need to be a bit older and have gotten rabies vaccination which you cannot do until they turn 12 weeks.

In the UK, the lenders keep the deed until the mortgage is paid off.  

You cant gamble on Appreciation.

We've been analyzing deals and feel that we have a pretty good handle/baseline to analyze a deal instead of feeling like we're gambling.

That's called gambling, not investing.

Bigger pockets is a great help.You could leverage the money into 7 $100k flips You could buy a big multi unit and use it for a down payment.Whatever you do don't gamble it and lose it.You could Jv with people and get

So....I really want to get into real estate with the goal of being able to choose to work than having to work in the future.I have a reasonable amount of money saved for a deposit and potentially a lot more via parents etc.I want to get into the buy and hold to get rental income to then grow to feed my next purchase and so on.All fairly simple so far.I live in Qatar for work and i want to invest in either New Zealand or UK, but preferably NZ.Here is my sticking point.

I am an architect with experience and my forte is: I can design well with small spaces (I'm originally from UK).  

You have to treat this like gambling in Vegas... you have a limit and you won't cross it no matter what.It's all numbers.

You're encouraged to take risks (hey, it's a gambling city), permits are easy, the neighbors mind their own business, and I think you have a real chance of success.