Last year was a good year for my business and between student loans, medical, and a small amount of consumer debt, we paid off a whopping $34k in debt in about 13months and stashed about $10k in savings.

Minor repairs to make it rent ready.

You can call multiple lenders and have the conversation where you go over current rates, terms, etc and they won't have to do a credit pull until your ready to pull the trigger.

Hi, we just foreclosed on a 3/2 SFR in Mobile, AL and need a good property manager to help us ready the property for sale as a rental.

I like to watch if they truly scrutinize the place based on their needs or if they are ready to move in that weekend without barely looking at it (major red flag). 

Plan, Plan and Plan some more.By the time you are ready you should have alot of liquid capital (down payment and reserves), and 800 or higher credit score and a solid plan of attack.Will this take time?

I'm getting ready for more investments and can't decide if I should make the next one another owner occupied single family home or a multi-family home?

Be ready to pay rent for the whole summer if it solves a problem for them.   

In all of the real estate books I've read so far - they're saying that the best thing to do is have deals coming in that you can start analyzing, so that when you're ready to run the numbers for real - you've done your homework and understand how it all works. 

Expecting mainstream lenders to be ready to lend is flawed.