3) from your experience what are the terms of investing with a JV when someone gives 100% of the funds and the other party puts in the work/sweat (sourcing notes, setting up the payments, negotiations etc).4) what would you say the advantages of performing notes upon regular real estate investing (buying a house and renting).5) what kind of return should I roughly expect?

I am curious as what would be best route as My wife and I work full time Monday-Friday and have lil baby.

(If I go that route)I have 2 plans at the moment.

Any local attorney that regularly practices in this area should be able to provide you with simple form contracts at minimal cost (this would take the attorney very little time).

As I called banks like Wells Fargo and did research on buying properties this route it seems that you simply have to have a bank connection.

Besides the New Western Acquisitions, what other companies in Houston that constantly have regular deals/projects? 

Insurance - builders risk two to four times as expensive as regular insurance.taxes while holding the propertyTransfer taxes to buy and resell2 sets of closing costReal estate agent commission to sell.Financing costs - more expensive due to risk of rehabbing.

So unless you plan to live in the house for the first year while you do the rehab then you will have to use a different financing route.

If it's spending $500 repairing a bunch of stuff this year, it's probably going to be $500 repairing a bunch of stuff next year too, just different stuff (depending on the age and condition of your property, I guess), so I'm not sure why an underwriter would add regular, ongoing repairs back to the DTI calculation.However, if you're talking about items that used to require capitalization, that are now allowable as an expense under the new de minimus safe harbor regulations, then yeah - that's not really a repair, it's capital improvement that's permitted to be expensed, so I'd argue that line 19 is technically more appropriate.  

Whereas, West coast real estate over time pays its self off, is very liquid, and it appreciates over time with regularity.