That could mean due on sale, legal fees, rate hikes, or a dozen other ways of making your life miserable.To succeed at real estate you have to play the long game.

If you loose big you are loosing your money...Cash is king but leveraging OPM (other peoples money) is how you play the game.

I'd be happy to play the money guy for those interesed attempting to preseenting their deal.

In fact, I couldn’t tell you the last time I looked at one of these.I suppose the most common alternative is to play the field and selectively loan to those who apply, adjusting rates by the perceived risk.

Relationship forming is important in all aspects of RE investing, and getting deals fed to you will only come from building these relationships, otherwise, you must play the numbers game on the MLS (and even at that, you still need to perfomr so that you can build relationships with selling agents).Things seem to always change over time, so it is important to adjust with change, however, building relationships will stay a constant forever (in my opinion).

"We are trained that the first offer from the buyer is almost always NOT their last offer"Many asset managers know most will bid low first to determine motivation.The asset manager will counter at asking or close to it to see how much higher you will go from your original offer to their position.They go down 1,000 I will go up 1,000.I can play the same game.The goal is to get them closer to my price and side.

What is interesting is that even with all the Option Arms still in play the industry has been really trying to convert some of these to more "reasonable" plans.

I think that is a good place to start - I would know what your top offer is and be firm in that - this is a negoiation so if that is your top offer then start lower and work your way up - or make it clear you not going to play the negoation game and this is it.If I didn't "need" the cash I would consider your offer - but I would probably ask for 5% down and depending on the usary laws of the sate I would ask for more %age

The banks that stand strong today did not play the speculative paper game, and while they might have lost out on the huge profits of the bubble, they are still in business today!

No, the motivation of the seller comes into play, the circumstances, but 20-35 is about the norm with individual note holders who are not really in the business.