I was trying to set up a time for the group to sign the lease and pay the first month's rent (I have a $900 holding deposit from them already).Two of the people (couple) have not be answering their cell phone.

Tenants don't move without reason.The out of state number is a cell phone, and maybe they had it before they moved in, and just recently cancelled their local number.

You will want to have a CPA handle everything, but you also need to understand what is going on.depreciation: the basis of the house is depreciated over 27.5 years (i believe anyway)Flooring depreciates over 5 yearsif you add things like a roof they go onto the basis of the house.so you divide the basis by 27.5 and every year you subtract that off your income - that reduces the amount of taxable income.Other deductions:Interest on any financingcapital improvementsa portion of you cell phone billyour business laptopstampsmileage to and from rentals, home depot etcetc etc etc etcyou can't claim a business loss for more than 5 years I believe.

It works and you can't get your money without discounting or bad blood

Is cell phone quality good enough?

So in my example your discount rate is 5%/yr and the $10k is only 1 year out so the cell formula would be NPV(0.05, 10000).An easier way of thinking about how much money you will make off the CF vs exit proceeds is if you simply added up the total amount of money from the annual cash flow and compared it to the net proceeds from the future sale of the property.

He said they used VOIP as tenants move from all over and keep their cell phone.

Sounds like you can do all the legwork.Too rich for my blood (by a wide margin), but I'd be interested to hear how you end structuring the deal.

Sincerely, XXXXX XXXXX_____________________________________The above terms are accepted this ___________ Day of _______________, 2006_____________________________________XXXXX XXXXXPresidentXXXXX IncPhone: Cell: Fax: Email: =============================================All you do is start sending that out to enough realtors and or private sellers who have apartments for sale and you will eventually find one that will be in a situation where they want to deal with you.

There are things that I personally do not agree with about how he is getting free rents, but then has money for 3 cell phones and cable tv, but the system let's them get away with it and I am not going to change it.