The head of training for Long & Foster is actually the President of the Maryland Association of Realtors so they do a very good job! 

After days of intense phone calls they finally give me an email and phone numbers for a Vice President and 2 managers at Premium Title in Atlanta.

Yes I asked the president of the association already.

Indeed, my partner is the president of his condo association and he negotiates with all of their contractors.  

I have told presidents of banks before good luck with those programs but I am not even close to being a customer with those terms.Some banks are in growth mode on certain types of lending and will  get aggressive to land business.

A lease option is (basically) a lease with a really large down-payment, during which time the lessee may elect to buy the property for a predetermined amount of money.  

He has been the President of the HOA and its been pretty much him and the management company for the last 10 yrs since no one else is interested in the HOA ( He said).

The other piece here is that I become less concerned with fuel costs when it comes to setting rent, so if fuel costs do increase, the tenant can elect to turn their thermostat down, take shorter showers, etc to defray the costs (much like when I tell my wife to go grab a sweatshirt in the middle of January, versus turning the heat up to 70).

Then I've done three more properties on portfolio loans with the branch president of this regional bank over the last 9 months.

Our elected officials are to lazy to take care of this the right way.