I know that real estate is a game of opportunity, and the profit is made in the acquisition.

Most come through the door want to buy something for $50k and sell it for $100k and oh yeah they dont want to have to co any repairs and they want to finance it with 5% down or worse yet no money down seller financing because they read a book they bought off of late night tv.I wandered a bit there. short sales take longer than bank owned property and the negotiation is more convoluted. you can literally work on a short sale for 2 months only to have the bank foreclose anyhow. there really isnt much benefit to the seller consequently its hard to keep their head in the game when the going gets tough.  

Just be careful that you have a real good fix on your ARV to make your numbers work when you flip since you will have only 3% skin in the game.

I am in the process of retiring form the land lording game so I only have about 8 of them left . and I self manage them. they were some of my very best rentals ever. 

New or experienced both can be of help with this game.

I am just getting in the game with little knowledge and almost zero experience with REI. 

Commercial deals are much more of a pure numbers game.

I thought this would be a good deal for the cosigner especially since they aren't having to put in any skin in the game except their name on the note.  

I'm just getting into the game down here but have the Northwest on my radar as a place to invest in the near future and likely move to again-- how is the market up there?

We all have fears but some of us understand that risk are apart of the game and others are too fearful of risk.