I am in Interior Designer by trade and have been interested in getting into real estate investing.

The "seller" buys from the source, sells it to the end buyer.The stock market has its "option trading", where you can sell a stock, and not have bought it yet.I have never, in my 25+ years of using this method, ever had anyone attempt to legally call me on this...and that includes HUD, Banks, Fannie, etc...who knew what was going on as it happened.The LLC makes the offer, gets the offer accepted, and the Wholesaler sells the LLC to the buyer. 

I am a professional engineer by trade but I would like to make REI my profession.  

Since you already have a rental, it's easier to expand their since you already have the network, plus the siblings can help out in case of emergency/best critical decision making.

Look for emerging markets close to highways and train systems.

Wouldn't you just be trading one problem for another.

You've listed many roadblocks.If I were you, I'd: #1 use a portion to fund my emergency fund (if I didn't have one); #2 payoff as much of my high interest, non income producing debt as I could since the cost of that debt wrecks havoc on current income.

I wouldn't trade that for all of the money in the world! 

Our goal is start domestically with fix and flips we can trade up to large apartment buildings while developing a portfolio of vacation rentals in Latin America.

Publicly-traded REITs get you into real estate and are passive.