So boils down to Character  And with Brian you have that in spades.

Meeting potential tenants in person can give you a better sense of their character and reliability.

This will give your place more character.

He spoke extremely highly of David's character.

@Michael Plaks is spot on - character wise, 1099-R income falls in the same "bucket" as a W-2 wage would be, thus to offset this income with real estate losses, it follows the exact same pathway (ST rental with material participation or REP status with traditional rentals), but since you don't have all your time sucked up with a W-2 job, you have much greater flexibility to hit those related hours thresholds under those paths as well.No idea if he's taking clients - but if you are looking for local(ish) and qualified in TX, Michael is also likely a great one to reach out to.

There we will be gathering to share our experience so no one else gets fooled by this slimey character.

(full disclosure-I knew the guy, or know him, he's not dead just gone from the auctions and haven't talked to him in a few years, but he was always nice to me and I don't have a clue as to the validity of the federal charges against him, but he always treated me decently and I've got nothing bad to say about him and I know other landlords who've been demonized and slurred as slumlords when I think they simply bit off more than they can chew, while other real slumlords seem to operate for years, as long as they don't get too big) He used to kind of dominate those auctions and maybe that was a good thing, as I'm sure there's a whole cast of characters who've filed that void.Thing is, ANY property under $100k, maybe even under $150k or $200k will certainly have multiple bidders, there are a LOT of people like me when I'm looking, who have the subscription to the sheriff's sales info reports from the Daily Reporter ($600/year and you get the results emailed to you in an Excel spreadsheet on Tues, next weeks auctions emailed on Thurs) and another good indicator is I'm on an email list for one of the firms (actually out of Chicago) which handles a tiny, tiny fraction of the cases and I've looked at the "cc list" or whatever you'd call it if ALL the addresses that email is sent to and there are HUNDREDS of them on there and this is for I think Johnson Blumberg, who many weeks don't even have any cases in MKE or Waukesha Cty.

Maintain the residential character of the community. 2.

They have such wonderful character.

Chris' podcast is a good place to see his character compared to "gurus" in this space.