You leave the lender hanging, and they won't deal with you anymore.

My only concern is our ability to handle the increased HOA fees until this market starts a comeback.

Lending will ease, though it may take a while.As a buyer, I worry that the number of REOs available will decrease and their prices will increase, since the banks now have an alternative buyer for their bad loans.As an individual investor, I'm concerned that large companies will end up being the ones to get the properties from the fed entity that's yet to be created.

I would just put them up and leave them up and see what happens.

What happens if these tenants leave?

Many of the homes in my market are selling for 20-25% of their previous highs, leaving over leveraged investors out to dry.

The explosion would leave nothing but floating pieces.

Not to mention, they will leave their cigarette butts, lunch, drinks thrown through out a house.

If you assume that marketing - of which locating motivated sellers is a critical part - takes 20%-25% of your time, you can easily see how little time that leaves for the other activities you need to be doing on an on-going basis to reach your goals.By having a bird dog or bird dogs doing these things for you it allows you to better utilize the time resources you have at your disposal.

Here's how I see this deal:Gross rents: $2,500Operating Expenses: $1,200NOI: $1,200Less $300 per month desired cash flow ($100 per unit per month)That leaves $900 for the mortgage payment.