My "day job" is currently as a graduate student at Thomas Jefferson University, and I spend a lot of my free time in educating myself of the ways of real estate.

There are some areas that could be considered "gray" but I don't think you'd spend much time in that zone based on how you've described your 401k use.

Ask yourself some important questions and be honest with yourself: how much stress do I want, how many hours managing will I spend, how risky am I comfortable being, etc.

“Live a few years like most people won’t so you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t”.

But to be honest I am no where near retirement or being able to spend more time with my little one.

The main hang ups are: I don’t have a lot of capital to spend on legal fees before I do 1 deal, BUT, I don’t want to run into serious problems on my first deal just because I didn’t know about a legal problem.Also, do I need insurance during the process of buying, rehabbing, or selling a mobile home, and if so, what kind(s)?

Good from an investment perspective, but at the same time another example of the tx state govt squashing any attempt by cities (Austin in particular) to exert any local control/regulation.

I spend most of my time traveling around Asia doing equipment sales in the automotive industry.

Without drawings you don't have a baseline to bid from or control change orders.

Go spend a few months in this market.