the lease agreement i use clearly stipulates what amount is deposit vs prepaid rent.

Expectation of profits 2. a common enterprise 3. depends "solely" for its success on the efforts of others.Most states have laws on the books that stipulate that all contracts are assignable unless otherwise prohibited by that specific contract.

Subsequently, I had to turn to local private money, which is actually much easier to work through as there aren't nearly as many stipulations as there are with hard money and YOU get to dictate the terms. 

Ask around for the average vacancy for your area, determine whether or not that's seasonal (based on semesters), and also make sure you're very familiar with the general rent ranges for comparable units.The owners will have rent statements for the property, along with leases and records for the maintenance, and while you're free to ask for proof of all those there's no requirement for disclosure for that stuff without an accepted contract that stipulates as much; hopefully your agent (and hopefully you're working with an investment-friendly Realtor) has good contracts for that kind of disclosure. 

The only stipulation is that the homes remain in the park for a negotiated time period. 

To get a REO property under contract, the contract itself has to clearly stipulate that the contract is not assignable, and that the buyer cannot be released from liability.

I believe there may be some additional stipulations with short sales regarding the time-frame frame for which the agent/investor must maintain ownership before resell. 

Best,Marc The law does not stipulate any price.

I would make sure you have some stipulation of the property being managed to protect your investment until you are bought out in full (i.e., he gets the entire property refinanced).Just curious - how does he manage to come up with that kind of cash but can't refi the whole thing in his name? 

:)I noticed you said that you had to put 25% down vs the standard 20% .Is this one of the stipulations with using a Reno loan .... the extra 5% that you have to put down ?