I ordered my countertops from IKEA as well, but due to the holiday season, the company they contracted with says they are booked out until the 9th of January which is when they can come out and measure, not even install( install is going to take another 10 business days).

It got us in the game and we worked with a great attorney on drafting the lease option agreement and structured our first Limited Liability Company.

The conventional loan limit, Fannie Mae/Freddie mac is 10 mortgages properties, after that you’ll need an in house portfolio loan or commercial loan.  

What makes a self-directed IRA custodian different is that they are not purely connected to the public exchanges and limited to investing in stocks, bonds and funds, but rather have the staff training and paperwork to document the IRA's investment in the more individualized transactions that occur when investing in real estate, notes and other non-traditional assets.

I was thinking in a limited scope and ARV of some local properties.

At the same time I have limited duty to the client.

You might want to think about your limiting beliefs.

Also, if you are not geographically limited, you can try to match up your talent/interests with an area that offers a more reasonable cost of living. $400k housing and $9k in taxes annual, plus the utility costs there, don't really make Vermont that attractive from a financial point of view (which is too bad because it's a beautiful state).

The larger national footprint firms will be able to give you good economies of scale but your experience will still be limited to the quality of your assigned representative. 

I'm running into the limit on # of fannie/mac conforming loans (I thought its 10 properties total, but apparently it caps at 6 investment prop).