Real Estate would arguably produce even greater incremental returns over stocks if an intelligent tax deferral strategy were pursued.

We do not include cost of repairs, therefore, properties in poor condition have artificially higher numbers than they do when you account for the rehab cost.  

But in recent years, borrowers used stated income loans to artificially inflate their income to qualify for bigger mortgages.

Artificially deflating values instead of inflating them.By the way when we listed that house we had two offers close to list price the day we listed it so obviously I was closer to true market price than they were.My point in all this is to tell you that appraisals are far from scientific and these days have a bias to be low so don't read to much into the appraisal.  

All of those have counterpart advantages to investing in securities, the difference being that you need to be pretty intelligent, and extremely analytical to know what those advantages are.

It sounds like you're a savvy, intelligent person so act accordingly. 

Stone half way up the wall and some artificial grass

They're a gold mine. 2- I can speak intelligently about the house when I'm making my 'heads up' phone calls while waiting to receive my executed contract back.

"Crossing I's and dotting T's" will lead to quite a few typos / less intelligible docs. :)

Also, any normal intelligent wholesaler is going to ask for a non-refundable deposit for a property.