The scope of work included:•Interior: Major pest remediation that took 3-4 weeks.

In this instance what I would do is get the deed in lieu from the borrower so you ahve the property again and get a note from them but have an attorney draft it to see if you can include a confession of judgment - meaning if they do not pay then you can get a quick judgment and possibly garnish wages.I would also have them put a small down payment as part of the note and only accept a check that way if you ever did garnish you have a copy of a check so you know where they bank.unfortunately you are right they can stop paying on the note and its unsecured so its a risk but out of all the options this is your best option.

no one, including my score, is going to be much higher.  

Setbacks holdbacks include a crazy complicated parenting situation (husbands ex) who aggressively pursues our money.

I even included that in my "Debt Strategies" presentation that I give at local events.

If the place is in decent shape I would offer to credit it toward the next month's rent and write addendum including no future pets.

If not, then you really need a strong legal structure stating how these properties will be governed going forward, including management, tenant selection, capital expenses, etc.

This includes if the property does not close.Your agent should be holding your hand through this process.  

That property sold for $820K in that horrible condition.I'll update my post to include an example of format, thanks for the suggestions.

While both involve finding and properly securing a site and bringing it to full entitlement, the ground-up process includes the land piece but gets way more involved and complex to execute.The full "Monty" for ground-up development needs to include financial literacy, an explanation of metrics, and how they work.