After you complete a deal or 2, you should have a decent bank roll to start investing yourself.  

If you're a new investor and are not sure where to buy, this can be a good start.If you already picked a market where to invest and you don't need extra step-by-step guidance, it will just be faster to find a turnkey company in that market and work with them directly.

Quiiiiiick TipRead everything by and about Peter Diamandis to get a heads up on how startups are already changing our lives faster than we can react to them.

Hard to argue with that.As to actual possibility for mold, San Diego's dry climate is a friend there - not scientific, but I've had a couple of issues needing dry out and it's always been faster and simpler than I read from folks in other areas.Good luck!

The mortgage will be very low so perhaps I can save faster and start investing in areas where I'll get more ROI!  

She will want to sell the property for you, though, so it may be better to be transparent from the start that your intent is to sell to the tenant without realtor's fees in between and offer to pay a fair amount for the BPO only ... this is similar to what a bank would order from an independent (i.e. not the listing agent) valuation on a short sale that is cheaper and faster than a formal appraisal.

A lot of people put too much energy in trying to get NOD's faster, and finding out pre-NOD.

My one caveat to all of this is that I wish I had bought more property faster once I had it down.  

She worked as a hops chemist at Miller and made good money, yet she was renting and had a room mate to save money and pay down her college loan faster.

I figured the rent was paying down the note, thereby building equity, and any cash flow I did get, just paid down the note faster.