Your first question is one of individual choice - it really depends on your long and short term goals.

I have lots of clients in the same boat- just getting started and trying to make the best possible choices as they move forward.

@Shari Lawson my goals are to build a better savings acct of liquid cash but ultimately to buy and hold once I have a nice cushion.

My theory is that their ultimate goal is to get state laws passed so that you have to have someone with a license involved in any transaction whether you are an owner or not.  

Success is a process, failure is a choice

For getting old documents into digital form, I love ScannerPro for the iPhone, snap a photo and it converts it to PDF and uploads it to the cloud service of choice, which you can then share with your group.  

Not sure ultimately what Corpus will be like. 

Hello, I am a Realtor in Nebraska so I can't speak directly about California, however the way we handle clients of any kind is to have them 'shop' two or three lenders of their choice. 

I went through a number of investors who I was looking to partner with to close the deal, but ultimately those fell through.

This ideal of helping anybody who is or has been in the military really means alot to me and i want to give back to the people who are willing to pay the ultimate price for our freedoms.