A great mortgage lender is worth their weight in gold (or whatever loan amount requested.) 

So do not expect appreciation to be your savior, the facts remain that this market will bounce back and will appreciate more than the Midwest, but can you carry the debt for that long until it does?

I prefer the Sealy Black but Costco isn't carrying it anymore that I can see.

If you are going to carry insurance there is no need for an LLC.Look for liability limits of $1-2 million per occurrence. 

The Heloc cost me $600 a month and the duplex brings in $2,200 a month (minus $1,000 in carrying cost) and the triplex brings in $3,200 (minus $1,300 in carrying costs). 

Refusing showings because the agent isn’t getting paid for it is the antithesis of carrying out one’s fiduciary duty to the seller. 

I stopped carrying 99% of the time after that because I had been out of the army a dozen years already and it too close for comfort.Next was 2021, when I decided to take REI seriously.

Keep in mind you have carrying costs, selling costs and taxes. 

Between all the licenses I already carry for my current business endeavors in different states, I'm not too keen on adding another set of licenses I would need to possibly study, apply for and take a test for then maintain with CE credits in an industry I'm not even sure I want to take on with any meaning volume.  

Short of asking the seller to carry the note at a lower interest or putting down a much bigger down payment - what am I missing?