However, the D/I profile of my two investment propertie as a stand-alone is ~60-70%.

What someone likes for 1,2,3 reasons can be the exact opposite of what another investor can't stand.

the 2nd association it resonates is the highly consumption-driven society we live in. in my area (coastal, urban southern california) i'm surrounded by 2 distinct lifestyles. there's the majority: seems like 95% of the local population who are renters, driving luxury cars, sporting fancy clothes, jewelry, hairdos, etc but obviously living paycheck to paycheck as exemplified by hardly a day somebody or the other is spotted  getting their car repo'ed by a camera crew. the rarer are the landlords, who in this area seem to be of mostly asian demographics (chinese, koreans, japanese) who live obviously very frugally: old 80s model sedan, oldfashion business cloths, always eating simple meal from home, seemingly never splurging $$$ other than into expanding their portfolio), my observance is relatively very few landlords in the area own relatively huge portfolios, each.with the advent of these infomercials and the internet (ie, BP) more and more people want to get a 'piece of the REI pie' and more power to them. there does seem to be this dream of rags to riches and while its ok to dream, do most people actually expect their life to turn around like that, as portrayed in most of the infomercials or even in the everyday setting where the masses living paycheck to paycheck, are spending their last expendable dollars not on depositing into savings acount, but blowing $20 on scratchies etc. in summary, is my observation reminds me of my days when i worked on wall st and the 'ra trace' was so obvious with dime a dozen stock brokers makin 6fig salaries at some point but blowing it on recreational drugs apparently costing thousands of dollars a pop to the point the next week they are broke again and that $ wasnt invested but wasted.  

Although I co-own and manage a Texas based website / web software design business and have been an entrepreneur for 20 years, I have a long-standing goal of growing an REI business.  

Definitely may give you a leg to stand on if the tenant decides to turn the heat off.

(two blocks away now)  We saw evidence of downtown revitalization with higher end units, geared toward younger tenants.  

Ethically, am I now obligated to stand by "first in/first consider" or is there a way I can re-position to have more flexibility on which application I consider first.  

If you go to REI meet ups you will usually find investor friendly realtors there.As far as continuing ed classes, contact your local board for what is coming up in your area or there are a lot of online courses to take geared towards investment real estate, just be sure it is a certified company so you get your c.e. credits.Best of Luck!

It seems great because it is geared towards real estate investors/lenders, but I'm wondering if anyone has heard of them or used them before?

I realized that one day standing in long line at the bank and said to myself how can I take advantage of this time waster or avoid it, my first thought was to just leave and do it some other time but that would have upset my wife, so I said what do I do for a living?