how is a UW going to believe you're going to drive 65-70 miles east to live at a substandard property in san bernardino a bankrupt city with high crime and your job is far away in Torrance at a superior location near the beach or coastline of CA (unless if you can document the employment or life style will make sense).

Have you looked into a new loan enhancement Fannie Mae has to the HomeStyle loan?

I moved here for the lifestyle.

@Alan Wedemeyer -  Depends on what you want your current lifestyle to be and how many years/income you expect to invest.

It’s lucrative but definitely a lifestyle situation.

So, in retirement the income you receive pays for a lifestyle that you want.

I am doing CFO/CIO work with some GCs in different states and trying to figure out what kind of software might be useful for enhancing the business, but the work is mostly restoration. 

What would you do if your monthly income overnight increased $8k, with no lifestyle creep, and received a 1-time cash amount of $1m?

I think some of the information can be applied for sure but it doesn't necessarily focus on the real estate part, mostly the lifestyle aspect of investing internationally.

We have spent the last several years more focused on the downsizing/minimizing of our lifestyle and monthly expenses than we have on generating more properties and/or more monthly income and it has led to exactly the things (freedom, flexibility, more time together, etc) that you seem to list as your goals .You've done awesome for yourself and your current passive income is great, but it seems to me that if you keep tackling this by going after more and more (and more) properties and then having to drive several hours each day to upgrade/maintain them... you're making more income but still not getting any closer to the true goals you were hoping that income would help you achieve.