If you end up specializing in high-maintenance elderly properties to get your start in real estate investing, as I have, this becomes incredibly valuable.

With that said, Disney just transferred 2000 jobs to Lake Nona area from California, which already has incredible demand for housing, so that would be a great option, Short term rentals near the theme parks perform amazingly if done properly and can generate tens of thousands a month in income.

Understand how car loans/ student loans/ credit score etc. impact your loan approval amount and interest rate.

My risk tolerance is usually pretty decent, but given the stakes (of being unable to find alternative financing), I can’t seem to mentally let go of conventional lending options.The risks I anticipate are: 1) Credit score will drop with a lot of activity in a short time (though I don’t know how much), 2) The properties are pretty rural, so appraisals could be low or lenders may offer lower LTVs because of the rural classification, and 3) Sudden market shifts could make lenders skittish about vacation rentals, making it more difficult to secure non-conventional lending.My questions are: 1) How confident can I be that I will be able to secure a DSCR loan?  

My name's Anthony and I'm excited to say hello to the incredible group of people in this forum.

But why would I take this tenant with poor credit score and willing to put down $16K vs a better qualified tenant with way better credit score and paying rent every month? 

Other than that, you just need a credit score above 600 and the appraised rental income for the property must meet the projected mortgage payment.If your new business is the same line of work as your previous employment then you can possibly be qualified after 1 full year of self-employment.

If you have access to tons of capital, then maybe that works for you, but I carefully employ my limited capital in the most incredible deals I can find (none less than 30% CoC so far in STRs). 

When an individual person gets a credit report from freecredit or Experian/equifax/TU it is a consumer credit report - not the same type as used in mortgage today.Some HELOC lenders are looking at using a Vantage score, another topic...Banks such as Wells and Citi stopped doing HELOCs this year.    

If you are looking to invest into real estate, I have found this site to be incredibly helpful. if you are looking to connect with other members near you, or want to learn from people in a specific area you’d like to invest in, or have a desire to find people interested in certain topics, you could use the search feature here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/search/usersI really like the alerts feature that can quickly guide you to current topics that may be of interest: http://www.biggerpockets.com/alerts