The newbie, unknowledgable agents that can't really help you will do it until they realize that they are wasting their time and gas money.

In the past 2 years, I have used my extra money to pay off student loans by interest rate. 

What I mean is this Money market at Bank of America pays for instance 4%, the money market local Bank of Bricktown Pays 4.5%, an online outfit is offering 5%.

They paid higher down as a place to park their money, propping up the housing values.

I would consider breaking even but will be hard to scale if you buy too many properties losing money

We decided to switch to Hospitable and use the saved money to hire additional VAs, which we can do a whole lot more with. 

Did a "hard money loan" with family using gift tax exemption and trust as collateral (despite what Dave Ramsey says, my father and I have an incredibly strong investing and personal relationship).

Lee - How to Make Money in Real Estate Tax LiensProblem is they're all fairly generalized and talk about the basics from a global/overview perspective, whereas Tax lien certificates are all county-specific and are based on local and state rules and regulations.

With your $50K in debt, use the cash flow (keep some aside for taxes) to pay down the debt as well as any other money you can (assuming it is a higher interest rate). 

I once had a guru say that people who use their own money in real estate are lazy.