I'm not sure if I agree with that notion.

You're looking to reduce living expenses as much as possible and as such, throw out the usual notions of 1%/50% "rules".

I'm an absolute immigrant newbie from Kenya, who had the false notion that this market was rigged coz everyone used to tell me that the real estate agent would find me the best deal.Thanks to finding this community & providing such an abundance of knowledge; we have a chance now: my hope is restored.

You get the idea.There is a notion by many in your shoes to max out PITI based on rental performance and that is not always the best way to make a good loan.  

not a unique story in 07 to 2010.. for every flipper that got burned there was just as many buy and hold investor that lost it all as well.there for whatever reason is this notion that buy and hold rentals will weather any storm and that just is not true.Now some markets did find with that strategy others got hammered just as bad if not worse.we were lucky here in the PNW.. our rentals did well.But if you had rentals I Vegas Phx for example there were man who bought 4 plex's in those markets that had 100% vacancy for years and investors lost them by the thousands..

My bigger question was the notion of "fraudulent conveyance".

this is a lot more then general notions!

I did not want to turn this guy away from the notion of a partnership with me.

However I refuse subscribe to the notion that out of all of this fix and flipping thats going on in my back yard that I am forced to go looking to do my first deal anywhere else, it just doesn't make sense to me at all!!.

The whole notion of cash is kind of silly because most people get a cashiers check at closing and not physical cash unless you are dealing with cheap houses and then you will sometimes deal with physical cash.