well... what about the $80K you spend to get the property?  

I'd rather spend time meeting people and fostering real relationships than driving people bonkers with cold calls!

You can spend as little as $100 to form an LLC, or you could use an attorney and spend $1,000 or more.

You can spend $1,000 and save a lot of time and filtering garbage, or you save $1,000 but spend a lot of time filtering through many resources of garbage.At the end of the day, like any guru course or even a college degree: you will hopefully learn something.  

Sure enough had to spend a ton of money on a drain, pump, and mold removal.

In my opinion, the more income you have, the higher the allocation should be towards stock / fixed income.As much as you can make real estate passive(Hiring a PM, getting into syndications), there is still a level of work that you need to do.Why spend hours when you already can afford what you can.The extra return isint' worth it.

and I'm gearing up to start the rehab soon.I invest remotely but will be visiting Detroit in a few weeks to spend some time on the ground.

I'd spend $5K on my own attorney to defend me before I spent $2K to settle.

Of course, given the cultural taboo of it all...not the permanent solution.I'd say charge them.Cracking up...spending my Thursday morning talking about poop paper solutions...

You could argue that the money you spend toward principal is being wasted.