Thanks for all the kind words @Jay Raught and @Beverly Fast Sinclair and @Wayne Snell.In response to @Bob E. question about shadow inventory (I can't believe I missed this question that long ago), there is a ton of shadow deals out there.You still have 6 million loans underwater, along with 3-5 million loan modifications coming due that are starting to default with the loan's adjusting.  

This is exactly why I have advised many clients and others over the last few years to stay away or at least be very carefull dealing with any "Go Zone" opportunities.These are very similar to loan modification services - Almost all are frauds and scams!

The plan is vital to obtain the goals.

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I have not yet billed them or repaired (it's flooring damage- aesthetic, but not a vital repair).

It took us four years and an attorney to finally get a pretty decent home loan modification through Green Tree (another lender failure as they just got sued for about $63M). 

But then, it becomes vital you start to seriously separate yourself personally from the business as much as possible, because likely you're still considered the "property manager" and then tenants might consider suing the "property manager", so some people even separate their property management aspect of the business into a separate S-Corp and furthermore put individual properties in multiple LLCs. 

You can use the IRA (through modification), so to speak, today to accomplish what I believe he wants to do as I expressed above...at least that's what I got out of the question so I could be wrong..lolBut for those interested in building their retirement accounts up using Real Estate, then yeppers..SDRAs are a way to go (SDRA/LLC)!

Have you looked into mortgage modification for any of the underwater properties?

As Hasan mentioned, reputation is vital in any business.