I have lots of questions in this area, but I would love to hear a story of your best success or worst "lesson learned" type of transaction at the courthouse steps!  

Although they were credible they would take you through success stories and tutorials of previous students who had scored big from using their services.

Surround yourself with people smarter than you and who are successful at what you want to do.

Rather I'd prefer to hold property and gain from it on a monthly basis.I know it's more complicated from that, which is why I want to learn.So basically, I'd like to know if you have any specific material for off-country investment, vacation property that may only work half the year (In Crete, I understand the island is not active during the winter), management, and biographies/success stories/mistake stories of such cases.I type as I think, so I might be all over the place, apologies for that.Thank you very much!

Do you have the time and skills to source the property, perform a successful rehab, and get a good tenant in place, or is that time and knowledge better just bought in the property package?

IMO, stay away from the major national VA lenders, most of their LO's are not experts and don't understand investors and house hacking and setting you up for success.  

I love the UK, I have always wanted to move out there, so I would very much like to become successful in my real estate career over there.

This can allow depreciation to be taken where there is otherwise taxation and the tax-deferred (or tax free) status of the retirement account can completely shelter the loan income.Some people oversimplify this to mean "don't buy real estate in an IRA" which is just misguided, in my opinion.It's really all about maximizing the performance you can get which each available financial bucket you have.

Having knowledgeable people helping you will vastly increase your chances of success.  

I just closed three weeks ago so I'm not sure how they will perform.