It's a bit confusing (or maybe my intelligence is failing me, lol) but I thought if you bought a property via taxes that it was owned free and clear.

The replys are missing my point.I was probably unclear in my original question.For this discussion the pros and cons of doing work yourself and paying someone else is irrelevant.My question is:When I choose to do work myself, when I look at the numbers my profits are artificially high.Should I literally pay myself to make the numbers reflect reality?

My wife is a wonderful woman and very intelligent.

I enjoyed the interview style, and thought the guest was intelligent, and fun to listen to, as well.

@Jesse Stephenson : I never once said I was intelligent ;) and yes I'm trying to get a loan with nothing down.

Because if you aren't your returns could be artificially inflated.Do you know what the cap rate is in your area?

(YES it ended but politics have artificially kept it going)My advice, don't raid the toy box because eventually you will want to play.

I'm going to make sure I can speak intelligently about everything before I go looking for partners/investors.

Very hard to argue that housing is not at least a little bubbly given the artificially low interest rates and massive unemployment.  

However, with the availability today of so much data, many intelligent conclusions can be drawn simply by procuring and evaluating the data.