Much harder to get burned and loose everything if you take your time.   

If you buy deeds from the State of Alabama inventory, you must take and hold continuous possession of the property for 3 years to burn off judicial redemption rights.  

I tracked her down and proposed myself and a fat tuition fee to learn the trade and she accepted.

I just want to know is there a strategy when coming up with those crucial terms and how the mind of a savvy investor comes to those terms to ensure I don't burn myself.

Best way to learn, is to get burned on a deal.

You need to analyze your burn rate meaning after you cut out all wants and focus on needs what is the minimum amount of income you need per month to survive?

I've been burned twice now by bank of america.

The point of setting aside CapEx is so that you don't burn up all of your profit from the previous three years just to replace the furnace - at that point, you're (at best) breaking even, or (at worst) going negative.

It could be very useful or it could burn you.

Don't wait until you get there to burn that bridge, and I generally don't recommend on being able to always refinance later, because banks change their standards over economic cycles (unless you're pretty golden on LTV, credit, & DTI/DSCR ratios, you're safer.)