Ideally, I'd like to merge my interest in practicing law with my passion for investing but I'm completely aware that this might prove to be more difficult of a task than it's worth.

Have you investigated an FHA Loan at another Bank"The following information is from the internet.  

I think as @Steve Vaughan mentions "procuring cause" is an important issue with listing agreementsRemember that it's the sellers money that needs to be paid to the listing agent even if they fail to sell the house for a period of time after the listing expires if that listing was the reason why you found the property (MLS)What I do with the seller if we have an existing listing it hasn't expired yet but it's close to expiring, is to ask the seller to contact the broker of record, Bring your listing agreement with them, and have them cancel the listing in writing, specifically saying that if they do rent it or sell it down the road they are owed no moneyAnother possible solution is to give the agent/broker of record some money to reimburse them for marketing efforts, which include signs and Internet labor."

the 2nd association it resonates is the highly consumption-driven society we live in. in my area (coastal, urban southern california) i'm surrounded by 2 distinct lifestyles. there's the majority: seems like 95% of the local population who are renters, driving luxury cars, sporting fancy clothes, jewelry, hairdos, etc but obviously living paycheck to paycheck as exemplified by hardly a day somebody or the other is spotted  getting their car repo'ed by a camera crew. the rarer are the landlords, who in this area seem to be of mostly asian demographics (chinese, koreans, japanese) who live obviously very frugally: old 80s model sedan, oldfashion business cloths, always eating simple meal from home, seemingly never splurging $$$ other than into expanding their portfolio), my observance is relatively very few landlords in the area own relatively huge portfolios, each.with the advent of these infomercials and the internet (ie, BP) more and more people want to get a 'piece of the REI pie' and more power to them. there does seem to be this dream of rags to riches and while its ok to dream, do most people actually expect their life to turn around like that, as portrayed in most of the infomercials or even in the everyday setting where the masses living paycheck to paycheck, are spending their last expendable dollars not on depositing into savings acount, but blowing $20 on scratchies etc. in summary, is my observation reminds me of my days when i worked on wall st and the 'ra trace' was so obvious with dime a dozen stock brokers makin 6fig salaries at some point but blowing it on recreational drugs apparently costing thousands of dollars a pop to the point the next week they are broke again and that $ wasnt invested but wasted.  

All can be done over the phone and Internet.  

We're about to start using Screen-O-Matic to start video recording all of the basic tasks that we do.

I am sure if you carefully look at the internet every day you might find something on the Island in New York that you could buy.  

The mayor just put together a task force to look at the need and the president of our local rental association was asked to participate. 

It is fairly likely that a contract cell phone by itself will not report, and your home tv/Internet is a coin toss.I used to be with you in saying "screw them", but after seeing the flexibility and options that good credit brings, I now believe it's best to play the game.Best of luck to you regardless of what path you take. :)

As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery