and possibly have enough properties left after sending 3 kids to college to afford my retirement.Thanks in advance for your insight!!

If your personal budget is so tight, due to credit debt and child support, seems like it might be hard to get another home loan until you work the balances down.Re savings, yeah, if you have kids, you need savings.

Which was probably a good thing since we would have been impulse-buying a house.Since then we have been reading everything possible, getting our capital ready and dragging the kids around to open houses and driving for dollars (they do not see this as the adventure it is).

I watch young ladies in my office juggle 40 hours a week and kids and I think "No way can I, or do I want to do that!

She is a single mom recently divorced past 2 years with 3 kids and has a good job and is  a quality tenant so far. 

Last summer I purchased an investment home in Colorado for my Daughter and grand kids while she attends graduate school.

Soldiers and college kids will be cycling through constantly.Good luck, James.

Half of those folks are in the labor force (others are retired, kids, college students, stay at home parents).

Others found JOBs, shared hand me downs, for their kids, etc.I personally have done a ton of deals with people.

True birddogs are people like your mailman, your kids bus driver, your elderly aunt Ethel who tells you about all her friends who talked about people that died at bridge club this month.You give these people a small token to thank them for pointing you in the right direction (which you then did the work) and to encourage them to do it again.If the person is actively marketing for deals and interacting with the sellers (if they are not already a personal acquaintance) then they should be getting it under contract and wholesaling it.A lot of people will say they are birddogs but are really in some nebulous area inbetween these 2 situations where they are trying to be either unlicensed agents or lazy wholesalers.The former will maybe find a warm lead then negotiate on your behalf with the seller or the sellers behalf with you and then have you directly sign all the contracts and get a fee or percentage of the price for their efforts.