The broad context of this analysis is straightforward: an economy based on ever-rising consumption falters when real household incomes stagnate or decline.

See your attorney.If you take the option and have had an insured loss, then loss proceeds can be assigned, see your attorney.As a tenant you can't restrict ownership rights, a first right of refusal can block sales, an indemnification agreement may take care of liens, so see an attorney.Gotta say, it's certainly not the worst I've seen, but this isn't for public consumption.

One of the things we could do is to change our tax code and go more to a consumption tax.

Think about things like cigarettes and alcohol, no matter which way the economy is headed those things will always be in consumption.

What blogs, websites, newspapers, etc do you read to keep yourself educated about your local market?

If you as the landlord are paying for water, you have to consider wasteful consumption by the tenants; they might have a car wash for charity running there on weekends.

Young people consume lots of hot water.We have a 5-bdrm student house which has undergone a significant energy efficiency retrofit ... but ~50% of the monthly electrical consumption is hot water.

WE have experienced 30% plus savings in gas consumption.

This is a huge consumption of his time but he has done it since day one and has stuck with it (at the time he just called lists of people he knew just to say hi and tell them what he does for a living).

But he is correct in his statement.I can guarantee you that any non-accountant using some cheap computer program for  taxes is losing more money than it cost them and more than if they had paid a good, qualified accountant over time, you should be saving more than you pay, but your income needs to be sufficient as well.A basic economic principle, the "marginal propensity of consumption" it basically says at some point the value of anything becomes less as consumption increases, that applies to your time as well, thinking in reverse, that means the cost of you doing something increases when you do everything yourself as the value of the benefit remains the same.