My answer to you, if you called me with this scenario, would be that if the seller is NOT in a rush, go ahead and list it as-is and see how it plays out, because who knows... appraisers are notoriously hard to predict.

Short sale approval is notoriously slow. 

VA inspections are notoriously stringent and have gotten even more so lately, at least in my area.

For your question about IL notes, that's a state that #1 I only buy land contracts and #2 is notorious for doing whatever they can to make your life miserable (I'm looking at you Cook County!).

We have so many big, abandoned homes that make great multis, but East Orange is notoriously hard to work with.

You don't use any kind of wall anchor, that is for hollow walls and light weight;Stud finders are notoriously inaccurate; knock on the wall to find the studs or start from the corner and measure 16" out and 24" out and look for studs at those locations, they should be close.

REITs notoriously underperform actual real estate ownership, are riddled with many more fees than DSTs and the non-traded REIT marketplace offers no advantage over publicly traded REITs in terms of investment performance.For @Gen Young you could do a whole lot worse in any of those investments than in DSTs offered by leading Sponsors to accredited investors in the institutional space.

Yeah unfortunately NJ is notorious for having high property taxes and actually this one doesn't seem all that bad.

For non owner occupied, there isn't really an "in general..." and to top it off real estate investors are notorious (to the point that it's more or less expected...) for handing the lender a ratified contract for a scenario completely different from what they were preapproved for, which throws all rate quotes out the window anyways.

I have a tenant who has been notoriously bad with communication.