I would also encourage you to connect with some local investor-focused real estate agents as they are well connected and can be a source of leads too.Best of luck on your search and if there's anything I can do to help please don't hesitate to reach out.

I encourage you to not be.

Ya this mentor should never have taken half of your life savings .. or like others who encourage folks to go into CC debt.paid for training can be a good thing.. but bottom line is you need capital to invest in real estate .. how are you going to make that capital back.the only way would be to do transnational real estate IE become and agent and make nice big commissions but even at that you need a years worth of income stashed away..I like your other idea  buy a house to live in .. you can find almost all gurus written materials and CDs extra on E bay for 20 to 50 bucks.. from students who never used it.

Hopefully this encourages you that you can at least find 1 to get you started.Especially for the first, Go find a deal that is "good enough" just to get started as the investors that I see are the most successful (determined by ROI and cash flow) are the ones the buy, not sit and sit and sit looking for that one absolutely perfect deal. 

I'm not a huge wholesaler, but I've found useful advice and encouragement through Maxwell's materials.Good LuckAJ

I would keep looking and screening - and encouraging those jobless folks to secure employment first.  

@David Schumacher your instinct is right - definitely keep them month to month.I think it’s encouraging that they want you to pull their credit and want a year lease, though that’s probably largely due to the rent being below market so they want to lock it in.

@Everyone, thank you for the encouragement!

Thanks for that encouraging story, Jason. 

So instead of discouraging, I would rather applaud advise and encourage anyone that wants to invest in San Francisco because the opportunities are there and the sky is the limit.