I'll spare you the reasons why you'll want these, just purchase an inexpensive spare from Amazon. 

We all were rushed, JJ just never provided, and ever since, and still, berates me for not being empathetic to his plight of rushing the loan for me (though the 2 wk time frame was one of his big selling points). 

Many are free, and you will make a lot of connections that will help you in your work.If you can find a good, inexpensive wholesaling class (either locally or online), and can make it work, it would be well worth it. 

A major challenge I had was finding reliable contractors that was willing to do what they say they were going to do in the timeframe that was set in the contract

It's possible that a great deal comes your way in that time frame that you'd have to pass on, but I think you guys would feel much better being debt free before investing. 

See link below if interested - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/djia.aspComparing this index with the hourly wages earned over a time frame is a poor comparison to illustrate that investing in stocks is worse than RE.

Make sure you aren't locked into any time frame.

You want everything to be inexpensive, durable, easily replaced at a minimal cost.

I'm a new landlord so you should also get advice from a veteran, but in my mind the biggest issue here is actually that he lied to you about the time frame. 

As an agent listing foreclosures I would just ignore them and if the buyer wanted to walk then they could, because the time frames would never work.