I was fortunate to close on a property in which the seller agreed to seller financing.

Fortunately, a simple foundation with concrete pilings is all it would take.

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There isn't a right answer, but recognize that there are tradeoffs unless you're fortunate to have been born into a situation with significant resources to start.As others have stated BiggerPockets is chalk-full of people in your situation. 

It seems she stole all my offers and ideas and presented them herself, amassing a fortune in real estate. 

Lenders will want to see two years of tax returns unless you're fortunate enough to have a co-signer for the loan.

While you are fixing to flip a property you will pay a fortune in real estate taxes and not have quick appreciation...in somewhere like South Carolina you will pay about 1/3 the taxes while you fix the property and see double the appreciation as well during that same time frameI invest mostly for cash flow and buy in the FAR west IL area in small towns...no crime, good tenants, far less city oversight in how I run my business and much easier to evict a tenant... in short NEVER BUY ANYTHING IN COOK COUNTY, it takes MONTHS to get a court date to evict a tenant.

On the heels of your guidance, I dug into this deeper and fortunately no rules of first contact apply (which is a relief given the relatively brief and informal nature of my inquiries about the property).

Yes, I am in a very fortunate situation that I'm sure many would love to have, but yes I'm trying to do it right and to the best of my ability.

Then in Oregon we are fortunate that our power goes down at 10pm at night till 6 am   14 cents a kilowatt goes to 4 cents during those hours..