Do some research on the several factors pushing the market right now, it is still volatile.

This obviously insulates them from CapEx, volatility of the rental pool, etc.  

Doable in certain pockets where price are stable and or only go up..Given the volatility of the market at the moment you may have to hang on a bit longer to have enough meat on the bone to refi and get a substantial amount of capital back..There are still deals out there that are 90% of peak Feb-March.

In such a volatile market, there isn’t much room for error. 

As a petroleum engineer, I firmly believe there is no better investment to smooth out the volatile ups and downs of the O&G industry than real estate investments. 

Within those accounts, we look at it as 'what can make us the best returns (meaning stocks, bonds, REITs, real estate etc... ) and keep volatility low?

The reason why they are doing this for us is because they had a CD that came due plus their other investments are volatile in the market and feel as if they can get a better return in real estate.

San Antonio is a pretty steady market with less price volatility than some other markets.

Yet, with an almost fanatical adherence to their ideas (Risk = Volatility), this group of geniuses lost billions of dollars in a handful of years.These lessons don't mean that it is futile to attempt to understand anything.

I'd suggest you mix a mortgage broker into your shopping, especially since we're in one of the most volatile times in mortgage history.