Mainly the whole idea of a bank being able to foreclose on a property/debt that they are not getting paid on, sell that property to me to clear themselves from the less then desirable situation and then we find out that the foreclosure might not have been done right but, in the meantime my hard earned money that I have saved up my whole life and the equity I have built in my primary property (Heloc) to be in a situation where I could buy a house cash is locked up in a legal loophole but I still have to pay the water bill, property taxes, interest on my heloc all the while the person who has not paid their mortgage for the last 2 years gets rewarded by not having to pay it for another year.

I feel like this is an amazing deal/opportunity to start my investing career and to purchase my first home and don't want to lose out on it.

So even though I've gotten out of what I consider to be my longtime victim mindset which is a huge step forward, I'm not yet who I'm trying to become if that makes sense and that takes time.I just thought it might be interesting to hear from others about how you dealt with these issues in your own careers and what practices helped you in separating emotionally and keeping separate from naysayers and people who feel you should be a specific type of person. 

This allowed us to have enough cash flow for me to switch careers, and not have to be financially worried.

Then build MULTIPLE streams of income, the type of income where you earn even while you sleep, month after month, year after year.Top that off with the power of compound interest, the ability to leverage other people’s money and the multitude of other benefits of owning cash flowing real estate and it is easy to see why real estate is responsible for creating more millionaires than any other asset class.BUT (and this is a huge BUT)…many of these benefits are almost exclusively reserved to those who actually OWN (or at least control) the real estate.I’m sure others will have differing  opinions. 

The Cash on Cash (CoC) return is the rate of return used in real estate to calculate the cash income earned on the invested equity in a property.

Research your state landlord/tenant laws because you may or may not have to give the tenants the interest earned from their deposit in a savings account, and it'll be easier during tax time when you have a separate real estate account. 

He lives at home so I can't move in with him, and I live too far from his work.I'm trying to decide if I should take a leap and buy a mountain/lake property for under $400k first to try and start earning extra money while I can take the risk with my cost of living so low.

Additionally since you aren't buying this asset in its own legal entity that pays its own taxes, the earnings will flow through to your taxes.

Income earned by a retirement account will not be reported on your individual return.The way it will impact your return is when retirement account funds get distributed to you personally.