In the broadest sense there are 2 basic forms of lending.Commercial Lending - Requirements here as to gifts, and LLC's are very liberal. 

The issue is that Suntrust was doing a fnma loan but being a little more liberal with the guidelines and now you are most likely dealing with a fnma direct lender and they are going to be very strict.

This is completely ludicrous of course, but sometimes that's how the world works.In general, appraisers are more liberal with purchase appraisals because they have a contract price right there indicating most probable market value.Because of the above, they mitigate professional risk by being conservative on refinances.

If I pay the county to serve all documents, spend $20 for a court date, etc, you can do it yourself for a quarter of the price.This is liberating for a small time investor

I would have to agree with Joe, your numbers seem off, and you are missing some very important costs (bold).Rent: $1300 / moMortgage: $630 / mo (4.8% over 30 years)Taxes: $260 / moHOA: $200 / moPM: $130 / mo (average)Insurance: $80 / moMaintenance: $65 / mo (5% gross rents, very liberal)Vacancy: 5%You will actually lose money every month, even if you were to self manage.

And what I did in all my years in CA.. is I simply close on the deals then resold.. and you NEED to disclose your a principal and licensed.. and that's no biggee one line in the contract..but I think a lot of this is situatational.. if you had an agent telling little old lady here nice clean Rancher in Santa Rosa that is worth 600k is only worth 400k and you resell with doing little to nothing and make 200k.. that will be frowned upon.You take a house that is falling down  extreme hoarder   bare land other types you can be more liberal with value interpretations. and unconcienable profits.

https://mises.org/blog/why-special-interests-sacri...http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/wynne-liberals...

No tax returns, liberal credit score valuations and underwriting, mostly LTV based loans.

Liberal cities like NYC and Chicago suffer this nonsense.

It is really quite liberating!