But during these 5 years of buying all these properties with her needing to sign for them with me at closing (because my DTI wasn’t good enough with just my income and name on the loans), it’s been a major struggle.

But I found deals that were good enough, causing me not having to negotiate the market price..... one step at a time, it’s all a learning process.

Any deal that (not said literally ) requires you to go to church every Sunday and pray for a good outcome is a deal that's not good enough.