Press hard and save yourself some dough.

Don’t Quit When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, When fund are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Dory; You raise the most pressing questions, especially w/ FHA lenders not allowing or considering certain fees, I've seen them not allow a $150 dollar real estate agent marketing or listing fee, something like that, but my point, if they are that picky with a 150 dollar fee, I can only imagine the wrath I would receive on a 30-40k "finders" or "assignment" fee :) However, to play devils advocate, I would have the seller sign a simple "invoice" for the assignment fee, BEFORE I submitted the end buyer, in addition, the transaction would be null in void if this fee was not paid out of seller's funds.

That's all I've ever bought--turnkeys through a turnkey company (except one accidental rental property I ended up with).

The house has a very small yard, which will not have shared usage due to outdoor projects we're working on this fall, and the fact that we have a very small puppy who has her own space in the yard (I don't want young children playing with her unsupervised and potentially being rough with her, or accidentally letting her out of her space).

NOLO Press has a good website and many legal self help books.

Life is simplified for accounting purposes and I don't have to worry about accidentally using that money. 

I received a colleague request and accidentally rejected it.

I think you will be hard pressed to cash flow at those numbers (or anything close to it actually).  

Christopher Sica you might be hard pressed to find 2% work in Austin...