We are extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity, even more so for those of us who have had others dictate our pay rate.

Quite the opposite, that is why it is so important to know what your market place will dictate what you will, have to and can do either by city/state code, or by what an appraiser says changing windows in your area does to the value (is it an expected change that most renters and home buyers expect). 

Again 3-4 is ideal so you have a good set of data point.As to subdivide or not, that's up to you or what the market dictates.

Mike Butler is hilarious and you can learn a lot from his mistakes and experiences.You should also keep in mind depending on your real estate goals should dictate which books you concentrate on.

Tax lien states where you purchase the lien typically do not run into the 10's of thousands but rather are dictated by the amount of property tax owed, typically less than a few grand.

How do you then acquire more rentals, since with single family homes it's always about your income and credit (unlike in multi-family situations like 5+ units where cash flow is what dictates financing)?

Knowing what market you are in will dictate if you should be flipping or expanding your rental portfolio.

Always remember, it's the buyers that dictate what sells...not the seller.  

The structure of your financing will be dictated in a contract as well. 

Once the property comes into the city  Next 5 to 10 years.. it gets upzoned to resi and commercial.. value shoots from 50k an acre to over 650k an acre or 76,000,000  .. now of course depending on when this happens will dictate the return but we might have only 2 mil  in cash in it over  10 year period.. small group of mid 30s successful business guys here In Oregon who each took it in their roth.. so less than 10k a year so maybe invest 100k or so over the 10 year and get well in excess of 2 to 3 mil tax free..