As a new investor you need to learn the foundations, so here's a link that will help Beginners Guide to Investingthere are also some great Podcasts too.In order to be able to make a judgment on buying a property, you want to know not only the details of the property, you need to know the price, and most important, what the value of similar properties in the area are, comps (competitive market analysis) where you compare the attributes of houses, size of lots, types of construction, amenities, upgrades, age of home, etc. against similar properties that have sold in the neighborhood or area.Get to KNOW your local market.

Lauren, Please go up to random people and ask for a bag of cash...but make sure you film it and post it to BP for our entertainment :)I have had more offers lately from friends and family and I believe a lot of that is attributed to social media.

Historically RE has done well in high interest rates, but I more attribute the high RE return being the reason for the high interest rates rather than a cause and effect the other direction. 

The purpose of this post is not to ask a specific question or write about a specific situation/event, but rather to start a general discussion around the three alternative investments named above.Commerical MF: Diversification, truly passive income for investors, forced appreciation, and economies of scale, to name just a few of many, are very appealing attributes of value-add commercial MF properties.

Can an s-corp owner /employee /officer claim an amount attributable to his own labor on a flip to help bring down the taxable profit?

Once you figure that then you know what the actual cash flow from the property is compared to the cash flow generated solely by your cash (which could be invested else where for a greater return).Doubtful most investors have the cash flow they believe when they realise they have forgotten to attribute any return to the equity in the property.

I would like to attribute it to the tenant's candles and dust, but they are clean and tidy people.

I would invite you, to consider focusing your energy, time, and effort on one or two areas depending on your needs, your fiscal situation, your personal attributes, your skill sets, etc.

I'm a newer landlord(investor) and my primary concern is keeping my accounts organized so a bank where I can have an account for each property and then some sort of "sub-account" capability would be nice to have.Does anyone have any suggestions or other attributes I should look for?

(I don't make much and I live in the Inland Empire in California) Its not easy to find properties in that price range let alone multi-units in that price range where I live.Now I partly attribute some of my success so far on being in the right place at the right time.I made several offers before actually having one accepted.