Watch your due diligence time period and be ready to negotiate if need be. 6.

Moving into that first house for a two year period would allow you to claim it as your primary residence and claim that exemption providing you will have owned it for 5 years prior to selling.  

I've given myself a time period of 5 years to make this happens as I have a primary job in which I love and want to take my time and really understand what I am doing in the RE game. 

The research chose the period from 2012 - 2014 if I remember right and the conclusion is housing market is beating wage increase 13: 1.But before that, we have the market dropped by as much as 50%, and I believe most people's wages didn't drop or by that much.It does make sense that the valuation is getting higher, which means investors need to be more careful and distinguish investing vs. speculating.

I recently read somewhere, that if there are multiple hard pulls on your credit within a 2 week period, that the credit bureau only counts these pulls as 1 single ding?

It (the new rules) are to allow for longer grace periods so borrowers (remember not everyone is a professional REI) a greater chance to understand and be able to make informed decisions on things like charges involved. 

Tweak the expenses too.Do a letter of intent and make sure you have a due diligence period and then go pay for at least one lender appraisal on whichever property is most "average" of the 4.  

unless he's going to take a significant loss or you are going to refinance for much better terms, this deal won't cash glow, period. 

I am just throwing out ideas to look at during your inspection period. 

If you are seeking a value-add deal to acquire, renovate, lease to market, and sell, in a period of 12-24 months you may want to look elsewhere.