That is actually pretty common, although the law regarding filing the tax exemption has changed in the past couple of years, before you could buy for example a house any day in 2024, but the new tax exemption could not be filed until Jan 1, 2025. 

I want to provide access through the common wall of the two units of a duplex. nothing fancy, sort of a "doorway" without a door, same size of a door.

@Natalie Johnstone My former employer who was a privately traded company that owned over a billion dollars of real estate and had an ancillary management business with revenues that exceeded $100M annually would sometimes form entities in Delaware because business cases are tried in front of a judge w/o a Jury and case law that's applied to decisions is very well developed in the State.

Hey @Devin Bost, it sounds like you’re facing a common challenge in managing short-term rentals remotely.

It is very common for one employee to not know what the other is doing;2) Fees:- Instead of requiring tenants to pay in one lump sum, they let them pay in chunks (which is very annoying as they will charge you $10 for each chunk payment your tenant make; that means you'll be charged $30-40 more per unit/month if they let them pay in 3-4 chunks);- Every bill they pay for you will cost you $10 (+$20-40 more per unit/month).

Determine a goal you’d like to work toward financially, is it “financial freedom” (whatever that means to you), buying a business, becoming self employed, becoming a full time real estate investor, having enough cash for your kids college education, having enough to retire, becoming a centi millionaire, etc.3.

Perhaps the conventional 5% down, but since I am self-employed and write everything off, I am being told that I would still need to put down 20% and provide a year's worth of bank statements to satisfy the underwriter.My question for the community is: does anyone have any ideas on how I might structure my first deal to acquire property number one?

We also send an automated message to them around noon time the day after check-in just to see if they have any questions or need anything, most guests really appreciate us checking in with them, this also avoids the common scenario of guests that have an issue at the property but just choose not to tell you about it, then leave a bad review without giving you a chance to make things right.

And it's just common sense, it really is.

(And this ignores seller credits, which are commonly offered to homebuyers during negotiations.)Affording the down payment is an issue for prospective homebuyers, but not the main one.