The benefits of in house property management is the seller or turnkey operator still has skin in the game after purchase and can exhibit low costs for the long term investor. 

Live in SB, but looking to purchase multi family in some of the cheaper areas of the central coast to diversify my portfolio and get my skin in the game. 

Also watch your back the wholesale game is very very very very cut throat some wholesalers turn other wholesalers in sucks I know best advice I can say is build your network of cash buyers and send to them directly don’t blast things out would be my advice but some deals you have to blast out .

Then we'd ask them to tell us which friends of theirs are in the game, followed by asking those friends to lunch.

That means they have skin in the game and are less likely to be ignoring your calls come the 24th.I usually take a $200 booking deposit to hold the apt.

I don't think you will get any assurance walking into this deal so you should proceed with caution.The government will force a land sale when it is in the best interest of the public however they will contact the owner of the property and a price will be established. 

The quicker I pay off the loan, the quicker I can get that money "back in the game."

I am a graduate of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology as a Computer Engineer working from home as a NoSQL database developer although most of my career has been spent as an automation and systems engineer.I am a new player in the real estate game having started the marathon just 2 years ago when I attended a Guru real estate seminar.

You should never play a game without understanding the rules.

Study (as said, really good tips there), from there figure out your game plan/business plan, then just start calling banks and talking to loan officers.