Your personal financial information is not as heavily weighed as in a residential loan.  

My family has been involved in REI since I can remember and I've spent countless weekends fixing rental properties and doing some DIY rehab.I'm currently in the research phase of my real estate career and although my family's experience in RE lays heavily in single family homes, I am more drawn to multi-family and flipping.  

@Dhru DasI am not heavily focused on MFR, however, that said, I purchased a duplex and a four-plex in 2015 for a JV that I was involved in. 

I work in the insurance industry and my boss's retirement strategy is heavily based on rental properties (and the land beneath them).  

The liquidity of a note is based on its characteristics which make is saleable: pay history, equity, borrower credit, down payment, etc; (of course this is assuming its Dodd Drank compliant, has a good chain of title, etc) and the liquidity of how quickly it can be sold on the secondary market is dictated by price, aka yield.

You could always go private money if you -really- want to go there, but if you are "new to the game", then I'd heavily advise you against brand new construction without either a construction or engineering background or if you are heavily banked.At 80-100k equity, you could turn that into 135-170k of buying power with bank financing at around 60% LTV (I'd be conservative if this was your first time going at it to make sure you will cashflow and establish that to keep working with your banks).

BNI has been a big help in my other business and BNI is heavily saturated with real estate professionals and other related fields (commercial lenders to landscaping to roofers, etc.)  

Thank you everyone for your input, i am heavily leaning toward not doing it.. just in my heart i want to help them out. 

My current game plan is to look heavily into Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin (may be priced out of Austin).

Also, I like to have a full understanding of every market that I invest in and be involved in the acquisition process, it would be tough to be heavily involved buying far away and I'd have to fully rely/trust the person I'm working with.