You don't need a ton of capital, but you do need to have a source to close deals.

To answer one of your questions, yes, note investors have to develop many sources for acquiring notes.

It can be an excellent secondary source of liquidity.

I am exploring NPL as a funnel to source distressed properties for our rental portfolio.

This was the source for all my down payments and repairs.

Depending on one's other sources of income that can be a substantial hurdle.

While it is awesome that I have very good credit, any lender looking into it will see that it is from a single source where I am not every the primary account holder. 

For high-end properties, it can be extremely effective because they source international buyers who will buy based on their high-end videos and marketing campaigns.

So I am reading what Account Closed posted and IF I am understanding correctly, when I start taking SSI and say I had 30K of rental income that showed as a 'tax loss' due to depreciation etc... and I took another 30K from my ROTH IRA, NEITHER of those sources of income would count towards making SSI partially taxable?

I am also learning about lots of other sources of capital, from 0%APR credit cards, to borrowing against my Govt Thrift Savings Plan.