But in all seriousness, I am not into REI directly for the money, or the prestige, or the financial security.

My brother owns a condo in the Fayetteville, NC area and recently got a letter from his tenant's lawyer stating that they have filed bankruptcy and that he could not directly communicate with the tenant until the bankruptcy was complete.  

We have a large house with a lake view that is currently rented to a retired couple while they build a house (cough, McMansion) on their own property just below the rental, directly on the waterfront. 

If you need direction on good neighborhoods, etc. feel free to send me a PM.

A lot of work needed to be done twice because my contractor was way too much of a fan of unskilled labor than he should have been, and ended up having to do a lot of the work again.

I am looking for people to either share there knowledge with me or point me in a direction were i can achieve this knowledge.

Counterproductive to your end game.Roll the IRA into a self directed version and buy the property with IRA funds (you can get a non recourse loan too).As @Christopher Phillips mentioned, every property needs to cash flow with at least 70% financing or it is not a good deal from a cash flow perspective.Also, this $700 or so cash flow you are quoting, does that take into account all the expenses?

They said we didn't even come close, but a week later,a duplex directly next door sold $68K So PATIENCE,PERSISTENCE ,and PERSEVERANCE ........And away we go.I listened to a podcast the other day,he said  " PERSISTENCE + OPPORTUNITY= LUCK "SO I THINK THE A ANSWER IS TO TAKE ACTION WHAT SAY YOU ?

I feel like I'm going in 5 directions at once.

I have bought directly from the bank before, but not through this website.