I think it stems from the illusion startup founders project by becoming young billionaires.

--------I'm under no illusions that this is a good deal, but I wanted to see if there was a possibility of doing something creative to make a win/win for us both. 

@Craig Hanlon  depends on the asset and were it is.. many assets that are buy and hold will appraise or comp for higher than you pay for them giving the illusion of instant equity.. the issue is you will generally never be able to sell and capture that equity... its phantom.But if you buy 30% below market of todays ARV in say Vegas or SF or Manhantan or even my little portlandia then your equity is real and can be captured. and in my mind 6% would be great.. but not if your buying in one of the areas were all you hear is appreciation is icing on the cake those areas generally never move in value.. so you need higher cash flow to substantiate the purchase or the reason to invest there in the first place.

A high gross yield is only an illusion if the market have so much vacancy that you have to expect a long period of vacancy in between tenants.

And yet a cohesive strategy seems to be illusive when you ask each person what they plan to do about it.

@Ming Lim I have no illusions about it being work, but when you say "hands on" it conjures up images of Ming up to his elbows in toilet water fixing things. 

in Non disclosure states your tax records will show purchase price 10 bucks.. this is how they work in Mississippi.. so if its off market there is no way to know what someone paid for it.. the assessor assess it by local values for tax purposes.In CA in the good ole days it was common for developers to pay more stamp duty.. as you could back into sales price by figuring out the transfer tax as it was based on a % of the sales price.. so developers would pay more on purpose to give the illusion they paid more than they really did..  

That is very true they are more naturally brighter and gives off the illusion of a bigger space (getting more bang for your buck!).

So the competition for deals gets crazy by all the first timers that will flame out and never do a deal but that does not make it better for those that do it for a living your constantly competing against someone with a 2k limit on their credit card and can hang on sites like this to get just enough knowledge to try to become a RE investor.. so in essence the market the interenet the desire to make a bunch of money because there is some illusion that RE is the way to rich's and lying on the beach.. has created the hordes all doing the same thing.We see this is the courthouse steps buying activity on the West coast every Tom Dick and Harry that can scrap up 200 to 300k in cash ( and there are Many) decide they want to buy foreclosures.. they show up to auction run properties up to a value that makes 0 sense buy it.. and never come back because they lost money or what have you.. and right when you think you got rid of those folks 5 more replace them... same thing is happening when your in the wholesaling business or distressed asset business.

You can remotely monitor the property and address any potential issues quickly.Automated tasks: Smart lights can be programmed to turn on/off automatically, saving energy and adding a touch of security by creating the illusion of occupancy when the property is vacant.Consider using a smart home hub like Google Home or Amazon Echo.