By that I infer he means to use market price as a measure of value and ignore the future income stream.

Finding cheap, fixing up, then over leveraging to the point you can't afford is a horrible idea.Tell your wife that it will take a few years and if she wants the best of the best to start building income streams that can afford it and step down the life style.

I used someone else when I went from Carol Stream to Geneva, thinking that was outside his reach.

You need a good income stream to invest and if you enjoy Architecture all the better.There are plenty of ways most kids get jobs without a car. 

It may not be as big of a deal for you if the real estate activities will be more of a supplemental income stream (for now).

Multiple Streams of Income  Robert Allen

Since the company I worked with offered no deferred maintenance the neighborhood and cash stream were more important.

@Jay Hinrichs Is "99 homes" streaming on Netflix? 

For an existing note, the stream of payments is fixed based on the original note.  

If looking to sell, Title Stream can close the transaction using WFG National Title Insurance (max cap on policy is 250k) or US National Title Insurance (no policy cap I've been told).