Yellowstone/Grand Tetons this year.Daily exercise.

Flint Michigan is a good example of a place that you should exercise extreme caution in investing.   

Exercising a little patience and taking a year to better establish that foundation before launching into the shell of my R/E portfolio seems appropriate.

As a mental exercise, can you imagine the perspective of an investor that bought a property from you just 8 months prior to that email, had his FIRST TENANT miss payments, lie about making payments, make partial payments, then ultimately skip out on four months rent?

I believe that it would be a useless exercise. 

This is just a learning exercise.

Do that exercise and find out.  

our single best exercise move was to move to AZ in the winter. 

I have read a few other forums discouraging this, however, I tend to do very well with coaching and guided exercises.

I think the difference is, you stuck to your criteria and may have exercised more due diligence.