Well as it turns out the property has suffered significant wear and tear damage including damage from tenant negligence - repair items that could have been managed at a lower cost had they been brought up sooner.

If your common walls are 2x4, there will be negligible to 1" of "space" depending on the age of the wall:  If they are old enough, they may be true dimension 2x4s, where a 2x4 today is really only 3.5" wide.  

As for the master sink that was leaking, you would have had to do that anyway at your cost unless the tenant did something negligent to make it leak.

I currently reside in Fort Bragg, North Carolina and indeed plan on moving back to Mesa once my term is up, which is in just a couple of months.So my experience in Real Estate is negligible.

Here, 365/360 = 1.0139, or a 1.39% increase, which does juice up a return on a multi-decade amortized loan.It's negligible for a 6-month simple interest loan.

The first time was not through negligence on my part - I inherited the tenant with the property.

How you conduct your business will determine how you are viewed, not what you have written in an agreement or a contract.I understand that liability seems to be the pressing issue for most investors forming an LLC, with me it was about the money and tax issues, not so much liability, for that you carry a ton of insurance and know what bthe heck you're doing so you don't get in trouble or be negligent in repairing a step or water heater, not that big of a deal!

Going to court is no big deal when you've done nothing illegal or predatory or negligent causing another some financial damage.

Regarding the yearly maintenance cost, it is not negligible, but I take it as another kind of assurance that make me sleep better.Even with having this asset protection structure in place, I do have an umbrella insurance to protect myself from outside liability.

If you have $5K/mo coming in and you paydown the HELOC by $5K then turn around and borrow/spend $5K on your monthly bills, its negligible savings based on average daily balance that the interest expense is based on.