It has been a bit of a challenge as my husband and I are both entrepreneurs and our income is not a traditional salary and the banks don't seem to love that. :) It has been a fun adventure but we still have so many dreams.

"Income: Wholesale real estate for small mark-ups to other investors & Refer traditional listings or buyers to well-chosen brokers for referral commissions" - Do you need to be a broker to do these items?

I could also potentially get as many deals as I have down payments for, vs traditional financing.

And anyone that suggests that you can be successful without going the traditional route is probably a scammer in your book. 

I would think outside the traditional financing box, first instead of using just equity.

The other is finding a realtor who wants to work with an investor, not just a traditional home buyer.

@Kayla LyonWelcome to BP platform and Northern Virginia.

You can target Adwords (Google's search advertising platform) for terms buyers are searching for, about your area, like "homes for sale in Austin" but geographically exclude the Austin area. 

It's an asset that produces an NOI, thus there are cap rates; or do you just mean that there aren't traditional benchmarks?

This also means we are not likely to be able to buy both a home and an investment in parallel since prices seem to be quite high here and we'll most likely be going with traditional mortgages for both to start off.