My partner and I are 25yo, have up to 80k saved up for a down payment and make a combined $150k/year (conservatively, not counting my 2nd job); no kids.

Definitely familiarize yourself with the self directed IRA do's and don't related to prohibited transactions.Quest does a good job on the educational side of teaching this, so attending their free classes are helpful.The self directed IRA administrators make the money in a combination of ways, there is usually some sort of yearly maintenance fee, and then some charge based on the value of the account, while others charge based upon the transactions that occur usually from the account (money coming back to the account from investments is often not charged, but this may vary from custodian to custodian).Hope this helps some.

You can combine a cash flow analysis and budget.

Can you combine two of the units into one unit, making it a duplex.

You mentioned you would be getting a tax return of about $5,500 next year, as well as you having around $300 a month left over after bills each month.So, you will have around $7,000.00 if you save that combined.$300 each month towards savings (August - December - 5 mths X 300) = $1,500$1,500 + 5,550 = $7,000There are quite a few loans out there for first time home buyers with no money down or like 3.5% down of house price, loans that have $ for repairs needed on home you are looking at, etc.

The assumption here is that these cash sales are investors or hedge funds snapping up properties, and while I'm sure that is true in the majority of cases not ALL of those sales were to investors.I think the lack of lending (and the general distrust of the lending industry) combined with lower prices is getting more people to just pay cash for their house.That's what I did, in 2010- I sold a bigger house in a nicer part of town, took the proceeds and got a HUD fixer for cash.

I've been reading about RE Investing for about 4 years now, but from a combination of bad luck, analysis paralysis, and laziness, I only have my primary residence single family home in Great Falls, MT to show for.

Just going through the exercise, combined with the NOD, will hopefully help him along his path to realizing that he needs to move.

I guess there is a kind of an entitlement amongst Realtors working with investors on the selling side of things combined with new technology that makes representation kind of unnecessary.

There is really a variation of every sort- all cash flow, no appreciation potential, war zone -or- really nice area, appreciation potential, minimal cash flow -or- middle areas, middle cash flow, middle appreciation potential -or- every combination in between.