However, the main reason I want access is to simply get good at evaluating properties and trying to assess how much they're worth.

You can't cash in your IRA before you hit retirement age without taken a stiff penalty and you can't simply trade away your real estate when the mood strikes you. 

I would simply file against them in small claims, get a judgement since they likely won't show up and get that reported in their credit report.  

What determines the success or failure of your choice is luck, your level of understanding, and your passion for it.If real estate is a goal simply to diversify, it doesn't have to be a primary business for you. 

Most loans have a "due on sale" clause, but this is simply an option the bank has, not a requirement.

I simply put down 20% as the down payment with a 30 years mortgage to close the dealI spent a weekend to clean it up, lease it out, and multiple application came in within the 1st week on market. 

I have narrowed down my options to a lease-option or owner financing simply because I have a 0% chance of securing traditional financing from a bank. 

They're more numbers to do calculations in your head...Cap rate, I feel, is not too different... it has a lot more bearing than those other 2 rules, but a blogger at BP pointed out, a higher cap rate could simply mean that the previous owner didn't keep the property well maintained...I have $230 worth of real estate investing books in my shopping cart on Amazon.

<soapbox>The purpose of the "50% rule" {of thumb} is to enable you to quickly triage candidate properties and dispense with those for which a deal simply could not work.  

However, that right of termination expires upon execution of the contract for deed and failure to give the disclosure does not affect the validity of the resulting contract for deed.In many of the contract-for-deed transactions targeted by this legislation, however, the seller and buyer do not enter into the normal purchase agreement, but, rather, skip that step and simply go directly into the contract for deed.