I must be the luckiest guy on BP, as I have the honor of doing the impossible—earning a comma twice. 

Same goes for all the desired areas of the west coast.  

My soon to be wife and I earn a nice living so we will likely focus on equity through capital investment/leverage. 

Take your earnings and pour them into your first plan.

This is purely curiosity and have no desire to wholesale a property but this just doesn't make sense to me.

I am working with a building friend of mine on building two spec homes on two lots in a highly desirable area.

While I appreciated the perspective and the question, as I explained to him - I am not in a position nor desire to put my investor's financial investment in such blatant risk.  

Unfortunately, the bank isn't going to ignore the student loans to allow you to do that.I think Bill is right about you needing to earn more money. 

Think of this as a business just like any other business and of course you are going to do it to earn money either as cash flow meaning on an per month business or as a long term investment where you will be looking to earn capital gains, meaning your properties will be valued much higher as the future than they are the day you buy them or you are going to use a combination of the two strategies.

I also knew it was a desirable area with a great school district, so at the price I got it, it was worth the risk.