Let the conversation be natural, be friends.  

The nature of my investing will start as flipping single-family homes, and evolve into multi-family rentals and later into renovation of distressed multi-family residences.  

Naturally my eyes have been on Noda, Midwood etc and I have been watching the Meck County zoning board rezone building left and right for other developers.  

Out here in the flatlands, folks have a lot of brown/natural wood/beige furniture & linens, so gray is a little too trendy for some properties.

That is natural vegetation and looks nice as long as its not poison ivy.  

If you're going to buy out here you have to play the long game, you don't lose until you sell, that's why real estate is so great, even if the market tanks you still have a hard asset to collect money from (because rents do not go down) and you have tenants to pay your mortgage while building equity and historically San Diego has been a great appreciation market, so of course one shouldn't speculate, but let's be honest, Real Estate is inherently an appreciating asset by it's very nature. 

@Angela Henderson, they just call it "commercial" since the loan is made to a legal person (the LLC) and not a natural person (you). 

The investor/buyer naturally will want a better deal than usual.  

Sure, these are natural byproducts of doing what we all do, but I am really, truly into REI for the experiences of life. 

Never, but the banks I deal with love to use 75% vacancy for LTR (stupid, Bozeman has 100% occupancy for LTR, never in my 15 years PM'ing here have I had an empty apartment), and 50% for STR (due to the nature of my market).