Pros: Asset protection(though it's imperfect,) anonymity(though that too is imperfect,) gravitas and name recognition(though...well, you get the idea.)Cons: Cost, sometimes harder to get loans(this one depends on a few factors.)Hope this helps, MG

Try to get them to see it from your side; you are a reasonable person and would like people to have the quiet enjoyment of their home and thus have tried hard to avoid having many restrictive "house rules", but your intention in renting to them was for them to use this single family residence in a typical way.An imperfect analogy:When Hertz or Avis rents you a car, sure you have "use of it for X days" - but they are not expecting you to enter a race with it at Watkins Glen, or use it to transport 150 bags of potting soil, stacked into every space in the trunk, back seat, passenger's seat, and roof. 

Then as Tom Krol says, Take MAssive IMperfect Action - in other words, just go to it, and you will make mistakes, but you learn along the way...and YES, I am practicing what I'm preaching!

I really see the imperfections in many things and being an out of state investors, I feel I needed to be there more and will be on my next projects.

Stated yet another way, I'm simply pointing out the double-standard; I'm not trying to discourage/encourage anyone from checking out the EWI materials.We all have our imperfections, and we all have taken some advice from someone with past failures.

Most home buyers wont notice little imperfections if they aren't extremely obvious, or extremely numerous.

There are some things glossed over (imperfect) because I didn’t want to type a 10,000-word post so please don’t pick it to death.

If there are imperfections, I expect them mudded and sanded before they apply paint.

Of course this is a theory that is imperfect in practice but we are likely headed that way.

But I'm genuinely not understanding which market imperfection is allowing this to happen.If somebody is in financial difficulty, why don't they just sell their home on the open market, which by definition will give them the market value?