Is it best to do it lock, stock, and barrel all at once - or if we were looking at taking a longer-term approach at rehabbing and getting better tenants in, is the stigma harder to overcome? 

They sniff out motivation, overcome objections, and set appointments.

if you listen to some of the earlier podcasts, Josh talks quite a bit about overcoming these kinds of potential mistakes.

Hi, All are very good points but each one can be overcome buy HUD saying, just see a mortgage originator and they will do them for you!

This was a relatively easy problem to overcome with some know how

Some are less risk adverse and want to save more.

Your point that things could go south and then affect family relations is a very valid point but knowing my family and what they've all overcome together, we'll always figure out a way to work it out.

Maybe the person paying the taxes is trying to get it under adverse possessionhttp://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/who-can-claim-property-based-adverse-possession-colorado.html

And, I'm hoping that through overcoming my social networking apprehension by finally introducing myself, I'm putting myself one step closer to building a great network of resources and friends and shortly thereafter, buying my first property.       

Perhaps if there is a lack of knowledge/ability on deploying additional capital effectively... or maybe a lack of confidence with properly estimating and maintaining enough liquidity to cover the moderate volatility of owning a rental portfolio.But aAt the end of the day though one's equity simply won't grow as fast the more it is dissipated into inefficient investment vehicles, and it could be argued that, ironically, leads to greater inability to cover risk and adverse circumstances than the ultra-conservative REI's tenets end up doing.