In what ways can a probate bond amount affect a wholesale deal?

If you are going the conventional route, you can avoid the gifting requirement by seasoning your mother's funds for 2+ months. 

An agreement to get paid back if it doesn't close will only protect you if you go to court, and if they would even have the funds to pay you for it.

You could even just put it all into index funds.  

Because it's hard to find much that will cashflow in the area (and because I'm bullish on the area overall), as a buy and hold investor I'd probably keep it, and get a HELOC to hopefully fund another deal with.  

We are looking at putting a fund together to take advantage of it. 

Since this would be my first rental property (and first property in general), is it best to put 20% down and use the rest your money to fund other RE investments or pay it off in cash and build up from there?

Once you leave the corp job, and become self employed, you can roll all of those funds into a solo 401K and own real estate within your 401K.Keep the corp job until you're debt free, and your cash flow more then replaces your salary. 

Everywhere I look people make it sound so easy, but it is not at all especially if you don't have a lot of funds to invest.

Find out Now how to “bond off” any lien he filed......usually involves posting a cash bond in a court registry.