I only knew what my borrowers were saying so its really nice to have you chime in with specifics and detailed knowledge. 

You can put a lot of profits into these and in future years use them again in real estate by borrowing or self-directing.- Hire a family member to work in your business- Go to some networking events and look for new investors/go check out a new potential market- Establish/fix-up your office.- Buy some Technology - new devices or software.- Ask Contractors to invoice you NOW for work they have done or are about to do.- Pre-buy construction materials maybe even some storage to put them in- Buy tools for you or your contractors to use on a future flip - Hire an accountant to help with some of these ideas

What I think is most important, is that I don't know what the group mentality of the FHA first time home buyer/borrower is at the moment.

I am a hard money lender here in South Florida and I am getting a lot of borrowers finding excellent deals in the Homestead area.

We are not in a position to borrow money to finance our initial investments, so we need assistance with finding the right private money lenders to assist.

It should appraise for an amount hopefully high enough to give you that 20-25%, which you can then pull out, and use as a down payment on the next property.At some point, you do want to let the properties build up some equity so you aren't over-leveraged with borrowed money, but it's a pretty cool strategy to get going.

I will pass that info. along to all of my borrowers.

Most retirement plans state that you can only borrow once each 12 months, so check their rules, other than that, you plan looks good.  

The exception would be if the current IRA is a Roth IRA.Also, there is a difference between investing with a Solo 401k, in which case it is the Solo 401k purchasing property and all funds would be availbale - and borrowing personally from the 401(K), which you are describing above with the $50K/50% limit.  

A short sale /w FHLMC as the investor can be difficult when a borrower is current due to the their guidelines.