[definately, the fact you went to law school and passed - rockets you up on any resume. use that to your advantage] get good at contracts and deadlines and what not and you will be well ahead. in terms of how you execute and what advice I would have to check with the legal hotline with the CA Associaton of Realtors legal hotline]2) Should I focus on a specific area of real estate sales because of my background such as probate sales or short sales, or something else I haven't identified?

One of my friends could do both well and put both on her resume.

Due to nuclear weapons, this may take longer than in prior centuries. 

Think about the impact of a dirty bomb or some nuclear material making it across the border.

Good grief, in 24 hours there's been more scrutiny about the resume of some woman named Heather than the media ever did during the campaign about Barrack Obama's resume.

If you want to go back to banking, I think it would only help your resume and put you in a much better position in the banking industry...Tony

Then destroy every possible nuclear site in Iran!

Borrower has defaulted a few more times over the years, we've had to file foreclosure which got him to the table for a forbearance agreement and resume payments. 

UNLESS yoru doing volume if your buying 1 or 2 houses in a year its going to be a challenge.Now I know when I build new construction I do maybe 35 homes a year personally.. we look at lot cost vertical cost of money to build  sales cost and what our profit we can make.. we factor that in before we bid on the lots you have to back into it based on end sales price.. you can't just build it and they will come and or it will appraise.. with the goal to make 10 to 15% on gross and if we do better than 15% that is a huge win for us.. but of course these are 400k and up.. so numbers are bigger but so is the risk. and we can't be like a high volume turn key company that does our yearly production in a month or two.I fund a few VEndors that do a turn key light ( is what I call it) they will let you pay cash for the house and they will charge you a fee to use their rehab crews and coordinate it all. then hand you off to PM.the reason PM is critical in turn key is you have a tenant base that is some what of a challenge to manage.. other wise none of these turn key guys would be in the business of PM unless they were going nuclear and growing it so big that it becomes a profit center in its own right.I hope some of this makes sense. its simply not a big mystery you have certain components that go into bringing a product to market and make it financeable.

Do you have a resume?