I'm doing a bit of self education but there isn't much info on real estate in Mexico.

We have not talked numbers or financing yet but he said I can bring in an inspector to take a look around.The last piece is that I'm self employed, earning around $30k a year, no debt, around $35k in cash I'm willing to invest, though I would prefer not to spend it all on one property.  

Has anyone leased out parking spaces to self dispensing water & ice machine vendors.

If it will then that should not be sufficient for the lender when I refinance the property.

He had a great relationship with his tenants and treated them like we treat our tenants for our self-managed properties.

Christian Benitez I used my self-directed 401K to purchase my first REI for 12.5K.

Also make sure you have sufficient reserves to carry it if you have a lot of vacancy and or repairs.

Once you have these reserves and a sufficient downpayment you can pick up your next property and repeat the cycle.  

@Scott BakerYour self awareness is a blessing.

He is paying the loan back with post-tax dollars, so there is the hidden cost of whatever his tax rate is.The better option would be for him to rollover all or part of that old employer 401k to a self directed IRA.