During the big ol’ crash you had a lot of empty stuff in the Inland Empire while a lot of Orange County just dropped their rent (with various levels of severity).

Has anyone ever invested in land to develop slowly over time?

@David Ruiz have you looked at areas like the inland empire or antelope valley?

You might also look at the Inland Empire for multifamily house hacking especially downtown Riverside.

With your budget you might be able to find something in the Inland Empire or Central Valley but probably not the cities you mentioned.

Same can be said the Inland Empire and a few other places. 

I'm interested in land to put mobiles on as a buy and hold in the rural areas between Vilonia and lonoke.

You will learn from the knowledge not only presented on the site and podcasts but just asking questions and getting lots of insightful and experienced answers.Texas is a great place to invest these days so I look forward to hearing how you build you real estate empire.  

Usually in the inland areas but a few coastal still around way up north that is.

While living on a boat and vowing to never have kids might be a bit extreme, having to support a family of four on one salary and put kids through college is going to end dreams of financial independence pretty quickly, unless you've built up your empire first.