I'm no expert and I'm sure other people would have different ideas but to start I'd look at Craigslist and see is there is anyone buying/selling real estate that sounds like an investor, maybe says something about wholesaling or flipping.

Like most I also have business ideas revolving real estate but I believe that in order to start any business you need to be an expert on your field.I currently live in Newark NJ I had to go back to work for documentation purposes and me and my brother own a family business that’s been passed down to us and we currently grew to a store front in Furniture Upholstery, my original plan is to purchase my first investment using a FHA 203K loan on a 3 family for cash flow, I also have an investor willing to give me $10,000 so I was planning on using his money for holding cost I’m going to put up the 3.5% down payment and closing cost.

But I got caught in some interesting stuff.Sure, Bay Area, LA, Sacramento have scary prices like 3 bedroom houses for $1M and rent at 3,000.00 (far from the basic 1%), but I looked over cities like Fresno - the fifth largest in California, with 500k+ habitants and a lot of good looking demographic and economics numbers - and I've found several properties in the 100 ~ 200k range with some close to %1 rental numbers.http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Fresno-Californi...http://www.zillow.com/fresno-ca/http://www.city-data.com/city/Fresno-California.ht...Fresno is just one city and California is a big state.

This is the experts wisdom!!!

On day 91 those restrictions go away and you can sell it for as much as you'd like.I am not a RE agent or HomePath expert so someone may have different, and more accurate information but as far as I know those are the guidelines.Best of luck!

A couple bought their home back in the 90's for x amount of dollars, well it is well over that price x today, so they have been advised that they could turn their residence into a vacation home(and conduct it as an investment) and rent it out for a set amount of time( of which I do not know) after that period has passed they can then use a 1031 exchange because that residence is now used as an "investment property"Obviously, I am no attorney or expert of any kind but I'd assume it was legal to do this as it is quite common here(shady, definitely) but it is what I have seen and am not saying I agree with it or presume to know the fine tuned details of what else transpires.

I've since spent that time selling off (almost) everything and travelling all over the US and basically reinvented myself as a loss expert.

There are lots of pros & cons either way - I'd suggest talking to a tax expert, at the very least.

What I can do post-closing is work with his lender to “cash out” which, in the end, would provide similar economics to conventional financing.Any thoughts on this process?

That is, for economic reasons.