I feel really like a rookie trying to play in the NBA. 

"we want 123 Main""It's a short sale, do you know what is entailed and the odds of actually getting it are slim (long explanation of the process)""We don't care it's perfect"Then for 4 months I get calls with the frustration building as the time goes on, my answer is the same"The bank has said nothing yet, we are still waiting.

I just find it all a bit odd because so many docs are signed at closing, which is all notarized.  

Sure, I'd say about  10%  probably do, and are very successful, but the odds are against you and it's much more likely you'll just come back in a few years and realize it was a bad decision, and then you'll be the old guy in college and have to explain why you are older than everyone else.

It would be great to meet like-minded people for once (financial freedom is a foreign concept to my college peers) so at times I feel like the odd ball. 

Odds are you will never collect a dime, but it only takes 30 minutes to turn them over to collections and you may get something out of it.At a minimum, it will sit on their credit report and may prevent other Landlords from making the same mistake.

On the other hand, the house next to my homestead was on the market for 7 weeks in the middle of summer, which I found to be odd.

the code is the code.. if there is a code for variances I have a hard time believing that they can single out the current owner but let you as a new purchaser use the code for the variances.. that sounds pretty odd to me..

I will submit at least 5 properties, but the odds of closing one of them are very low.

I also occasionally have random people come to my house trying to intimidate me into paying them to do odd jobs.