You can also choose to establish your own off-market pipeline, but this will take a lot of time or money - direct mail campaigns, cold calling, driving for dollars.

Before we decide to use our money to invest in real estate, we were thinking of buying a house to live in.

Thanks all, With current interest rates and housing prices it's unlikely you can pull all of your money out these days.

This sole property pays my primary home mortgage, allowing me to own two homes using other peoples’ money.  

@Chris Hutchens@Stephen Akindona hit it on the money.

The homeowner / contractor trying to save money on a project will go the framing route.

If you are considering selling, think about the level of rehab that it needs to get to retail value and determine if it’s worth it to put money into a rehab to get it up to that level or just selling as is

In addition the buyers had to go through a year long class on money management and how to keep their credit good and so on and so forth.. this program is NOT designed for investors although it says its open to anyone who makes below the median income I believe and you can have crappy credit most do. 

I would not want to leave any of my money from a the HELOC or 401k loan for more than 6 months, so I can rinse and repeat.

Such behaviors are fairly common even amongst people who made a lot of money.