The Austin area housing market didn't care that February is typically a slow month.

@Robert Naucke Jr, most of the crowdfunding companies don't require accreditation but i would thread carefully and read their reviews.

I invest in the low end. millennials don't care about slowly building the networth required to qualify for that type of house.

Just pick an insurance company carefully just like you would pick an attorney, RE agent, CPA etc..

And either way I should probably take care of my personal finances first.Thoughts????

You have to be ultra careful because with this length of time holding the property a lot of things can go wrong and the market can change temporarily for the worst due to weather, holidays spike in interest rates, sudden oversupply etc...

Owner occupied can generally be more selective on who they rent to, without violating fair housing.

Sellers indicated they did not care about closing date/cash offer so we decided to skip on it and not tie up large amount.

Once you're deemed credit worthy by lenders you can start using leverage which needs to be used VERY carefully but is also extremely powerful.I personally do NOT recommend that someone with a trades or self employment 'life track' as you are describing is best suited to buy a first house with cash, and for instance use your time to fix it up.Few reasons here:Firstly, often the kinds of 'cash deals' available are ones that can to generalize tend to be more cash flow type properties (as opposed to equity properties). 

Careful.. you may want to gets some books at the library and do some reading first.