Bought the 6 family at a bad time (early 2007), paid too much, and it needed too much, but somehow it seemed like a good idea at the time! 

You can also buy properties that a bank wouldn't give a mortgage on, say I could with a really bad roof. 

My option period starts Friday and I am having serious doubts that Irby won’t appraise and I may have my firstborn deal be a bad one.

From what I understand, it seems I will need to verify how the transfer was done in 2007 (quit claim (bad?)

The reason I mention the 'high income' in particular is simply because right now, I seem to be a pretty solid bet for most lenders whereas I'm not sure if my net-worth in stock will be sufficient to get a good mortgage rate since my 'income-to-debt' ratio will be dramatically different.I don't intend to try taking on a bad deal in the short-term just because of the whole mortgage-lendability-risk issue, but I'm trying to figure out how much of an issue it really even is in the first place and how much I should take it into consideration.If I don't have an active income, presumably (and please, correct me if I'm wrong here) I'd still have some potential to get mortgages, but they'd be at a higher rate (e.g. maybe a couple percentage points higher)?

My credit was bad and now all of a sudden owed a bunch of money. 

People need a place to live, even when the economy is bad.

Not a bad jump into investing option with the intent of a refi a short time later.

Good luck starting out on your real estate investing career!

Sometimes development can actually be a bad thing.