If your property is staged well it would be really easy to have that conversation with them and have them share the listing. 

Whole thing seemed very staged to me so I told the seller I was not closing until the tenant was out and I could see for myself.

Speaking of referrals, I think once I hit the later stage of some of my deals, my few current investors may open me up to their friends and networks. 

The bigger banks I’ve worked with in the past have never asked for tax returns at this stage but maybe I’m missing something.

I was moving couches for staging in it yesterday. 

Am I being overly optimistic about the benefits being a real estate agent can add in these very early stages of my investing? 

I'm still in the learning stages, but my desire to get "into this" isn't new.

In that, you are attempting a very detailed risk/reward analysis, should your assumptions be off by 5% your conclusions could be off by 35%.I am actually not passing judgment on your conclusions at this stage.

As I'm still in the learning stages of my REI side hustle, I guess one of the biggest things that I'm realizing is that there are a million different ways to go about this. 

It also means that the short sale process typically hasnt began or is in early stages.