It is quite an impressive tale and anyone who has read the book will sing its praises as life-changing and often the spark that started them on their journey to financial independence.

As you and I discussed on another thread, the accountants for a fairly prominent leveraged real-estate debt fund determined that it would not be subject to UDFI due to the way it was structured (and the accounting opinion was concurred upon in an audit by the 11th largest accounting firm in the US).

Appraisal independence requirements put in place since Dodd-Frank are a thing.

That a wholesaler makes a profit in independently negotiating two separate contracts (i.e. the P&S with seller and then an assignment of the P&S) still ignores the fact that the wholesaler is not a representative of either party.Having said that, it is certainly possible for you to violate the licensure laws depending on how you hold yourself out and/or structure your deal.

We plan on starting our journey as a Financially Independent Retire Early (F-I-R-E) in 5 years when my husband turns 55.

In order to audit the rent roll and ensure the rents are actually being paid it is common (at least for me) to balance it to the bank statement.

That way, in 10 years, you will have a monster cash flow and can essentially be financially independent if that's your monthly spend.However, I'm always considering the risk. 

But like Bill says it's gonna be a huge uphill battle if you're audited and the IRS wants to say no. 

Something to chew on.Last bit of advice: While I personally don't have any interest in Independence (I like that big city life I suppose), it has a lot of great options.

The existing lease will come over to you with the sale and will supersede any of your renovation plans unless you can come to an independent agreement with the current tenants to exit the contract.