It will not be easy, but if you stick with it, I'm confident that you'll find REI worthwhile.Growth always works, like nature, according to established lines (ex. seeds to not turn into trees overnight; they evolve always according to similar stages of growth).Remember...Definite Plans + Faith + Emotion + Action = All human accomplishmentDefinite Plans: your mental roadmapFaith: Believing in yourself and others and that you can accomplish your goalEmotion: You must feel strongly / KNOW you will accomplish your goalAction: Plans not applied through action leads nowhere. 

I was always taught to never let your emotions cloud your judgement on a deal either, know when to walk away. 

I think this will be quite hard to cashflow positive...neutral at best.I'm think I'm more trying to weigh the intangible and emotional values....what if I move back to Austin and now I'm priced out of the neighborhood we love.

I haven't used the word 'pet' in a few years with all the emotional support animal (ESA) language and laws.  

A bad partnership might be costly, both financially and emotionally.

@Jeff Purl I would avoid pets or emotional support animals.

And it's often because they've gotten emotionally attached to making a particular deal work

What works better than others is how you appeal to your targeted seller's emotions (tired landlord, absentee, probate, inheritance, etc).

I don't think the issue of days on market applies to you as a flipper because you are much more inclined to understand "pricing it right" and far less emotionally attached than a regular home seller so you will probably have it priced to sell right from the get go unlike so many homeowners with jaundiced opinions of what their homes are worth that arent based in any factual comp data.

That's probably some of the best couple hundred dollars I've ever "wasted," because......In the alternative world where this person didn't verbally disclose that foreclosure to me and I'd preapproved them and sent them out house-hunting based on their excellent FICO score and everything else, they would have had their loan denied the last week of escrow, after all contingencies had been released: Seller would quite likely have gotten to keep the earnest money deposit, The buyer's agent would have been out their time/money/gas/etc spent helping them house shop, The seller would have had to put the property back on the market with the stigma, etc, and most importantly,The homebuyer wasted all that time, money, energy, emotion, etc, on something that was never going to happen anyways.