When you're trying to efficiently deploy your capital, having a bunch of outstanding short sale deals in lala land makes it difficult to determine what else you can do in the short term, such as evaluating available REOs.

I hadn't thought to ask about taxes when I attend the REIA events prior to deploying.

I don't recommend investing in these markets unless you know the rules and can live within them.I prefer to invest in #1, although i do have units across all 3 types.Many hosts that scale up their portfolio eventually move from residential zoned properties into commercial zoned properties due to the easy of scaling up money deployed and the safety of regulations

To me, a good place to start, after defining your goals, is to ask yourself how you'd deploy that 200k?

Real estate is super local (as you know), but I wont deploy capital or spend the time managing a property unless I can get $200/door.  

Naturally, GCs that are successfully managing those challenges are going to deploy their resources to projects that maximize their returns. 

I am also in the Air Force reserves (currently deployed in the Middle East...

It's better to invest in good/conservative deals than to get your funds deployed in bad deals.I invested in BAM fund 2 last year.

You'll want a PM who is experienced working with the military and the rules on deployments.  

I have purchased properties that needed work and I have done the work in my off hours, weekends, and down time from deployments.