Yes, I agree I come to realize we all have our own path.

While I realize it can get hotter in MD then here. 

Initially purchased as a primary residence, but when I decided to downsize to minimize my liabilities I realized I could keep this property and cash flow it with the right business plan.

I realize that most people are not knowledgeable in both the Arizona and Norcal markets, but if you have some insight on one or the other I would love to pick your brain a little bit.Thank you in advance.

We realized this strategy wouldn't get us where we wanted to go very quickly.We did quite a bit of research, eventually found the right mentor (can offer advice in this area, too), and dove in to apartment syndication - and never looked back! 

It's pointless to do a lot of analysis and call people upfront only to realize you don't even have a deal tied up.Now having said that, as Joe said - you need to know your market very well so you know your property values and you should have a quick way to analyze the deal and make offers.I wrote exactly about this last night - how we got a 279-unit portfolio and tied it up quickly (even though we didn't have the T12 - trailing 12 months income) beating out other investors (and in fact, we ended up selling 173 units of that portfolio to other investors who got beaten out).

Ideally, the faster I can spend 100% of my time within real estate investing the better, but I do realize that I may need some sort of income stream to qualify for fixed low-rate loans.

Of 1,500, When I realized we were going over estimate they kept saying we're almost done it's just a little bit more work and we'll have it rented that went on for several months.

I realize I've left out a lot from my post, but believe me, we've lost lots of sleep over the last several days about this matter. 

This is SUPER timely as I was analyzing a cheap sample property here in Atlanta last night (to get analysis reps in) and came to the same realization.