You can easily buy a house their off the MLS for a few grand.

@Damir Kamber  HML  or lending in general unless its very short term IE flip loans of 6 months or less... 13k is not going to really get you anywhere your better off trying to buy some low end deals and make 5 to 10k flipping them to those who want to own rentals. build up a few hundred grand in cash then start your plan of either lending short term or buy and hold. or a combination of both.Many ask me about HML as I have been doing it for a number of years.. and a good living at hard money lending is when you have 5million to lend.. that brings you in 500 to 600k in revenue 100k in over head etc... much less than 5 million is really just an investment hobby.

SPAM - Apparently after the grand deed is signed in your name, that public record is now available to spammers..I got about 4-5 letters in the mail of "dated materials" with copies of that grant deed and a "submit payment of $54.95 to xyz..." for a frame picture of that paperwork.

Numbers can differ across the state...Detroit is different than U.P. which is different than Grand Rapids.

This house was mainly cosmetic for me, but we did have to open up all of the upper level in order to give it that large Grand awe experience. 

The risk here is that you spend a grand on inspections, appraisal, you have $15k in earnest money tied up and the seller refuses to sign the paperwork to release it back to you, etc, when in reality you shouldn't have been looking at homes that expensive to begin with.

@Mike Griffin in the grand scheme of things, real estate and stocks are actually not the safest investments. 

I guess my thought now is that the $20k difference in the grand scheme isn't really that big of a spread across 10+ years I plan to hold this property. 

A few grand per unit is good and then put ~15% of rents aside for repairs and CapEx.

I can barely do a kitchen myself for $8 grand.