Our main interest in real estate investing are flips, but we've found it difficult to start flipping in the DMV (DC / MD / VA) area due to the high housing prices, and difficulty in getting enough capital to buy houses in cash.

It may be difficulty to identify what stage you're at in your investing career, especially early on! 

We have been trying to get one filed with the permit office but it's proving to be extremely difficult. I

Another is a Tenants in common (TIC) that is set up as a unit ownership structure...I've heard these exist more than elsewhere in the CA bay area.Both of them are less common and seem to be a lower value asset due to their ownership structure and financing difficulties.

I am having tremendous difficulty finding properties that have a fair sales price in comparison to the rents I believe I can get.

What's difficult is that it's chaos and lies, chaos and lies, chaos and misinformation, chaos and truth, order and lies, and misinformation, and more chaos.

I particularly appreciate the thoughts on the difficulty of selling a luxury residence without the benefit of a physical property to tour.Just to clarify, the neighborhood in which the project is located does have comps at the $800k price point and people have built much more expensive homes than that.

Since you have had difficulty selling the house, you probably should try to talk to your agent again to ask his opinion on the price.Another problem is as many said here that building a palace in a ghetto is usually a bad idea.

My google-fu came up short in finding the specific difficulty to which you allude.

I'm considering "retiring" and doing something else.I don't love being a Realtor; the hours in particular are difficult, I often don't feel like I can keep my mind from wandering to clients and pending deals, and I don't feel I've had domain over my own mind, or gotten away from work completely, in more than 3 years.