Personally, I think THE best investment in America as far as real estate, is in medical office space, not SFR.

It is a held cash balance inside the owners operating account within a trust account for emergencies.

I have had some temporary medical students, and those were ideal.

I have excellent credit: 780 in Dec; low income the last 2 years (@ $35k) due to many family emergencies (3 deaths); am self- employed - will file 2nd tax return as SE this year; excellent assets.

Last year, my husband decided to start medical school and I had baby #3, and I realized my job (web development and internet marketing) wasn't going to be enough to pay for medical school and three kids.

But more importantly, you may have picked up in other threads that I have MS, which is a medical condition that will likely make it very difficult or impossible for me to perform manual labor over time.

The other has some older unpaid medical, but also has a $300 utility from this past year that has gone to collections as well as a smaller medical bill.

He has several unpaid medical bills for about $1700 from 2008/9, a recent utility that has gone to collections as well as another unknown account in collections.At first I said No to my PM about the 2nd couple, but he spoke with her and she said that the chargeoffs were joint credit cards from a divorce after which her ex-husband left the country, and she's working with a lawyer on those charges, and the lawyer told her not to pay on them until it was resolved.

Yes, you should always check your state and local laws.Here in North Carolina, we would not enter the property unless there is an emergency.

So I firmly believe that was a step in the right direction.Meanwhile, my girlfriend of three and a half years and I went to a rich dad free seminar down at the country club, and two things happened: she started to see where investing and 'financial intelligence' could take us, and I got fired up again about real estate investing (from two angles this time).Our current situation is as follows:Me:Almost zero cash and minimal credit available at this pointSOME stuff in collections from when I was in school, medical stuffsomewhere around 20,000 in school loans10,000 in credit card debt, plus another 5000 for my Jeep.Her:about 5000 in savings for a rainy dayprobably around 20,000 in available credit if she asked for itJUST(October) purchased the home we live in, so a new mortgage of 150,000That's about it.Right now I'm hurting for the winter, as I'm pretty new in the real estate business, and she's doing okay.