Maybe it's conjecture on my part, but I think a good agent (good being the operative word) would have encouraged you to start by offering lower and saved you more than 2.5%. 

Unfortunately, no one is "allowing" them to operate, @Stylianos Kalamaras.

I’m a long term rental guy, so make less than an Airbnb type operation on cash-flow .  

I learned from Dave, how to talk to potential investors, how to build rapport, how to answer questions and explain the company’s strategy and operations and the secondary mortgage industry.

In our area, it is rare to find a gas station where the real estate is owned by the operator.

My only concern to look out for is that things can go 'rural' pretty quickly if you start venturing outside of town, and most lenders are going to put the brakes on financing if the appraisal lists the property as 'rural' (has to do with what they perceive as the availability of future tenants).Watertown, NY - It probably is as good as you believe, but the lending licensing is pretty tricky up there, so its just  bit more difficult to find lenders that operate up there.

How about using SDIRAs not to hold assets but to operate businesses?

Don't operate under the, "we get along and can figure it out" mindset. 

Prices a few years ago were based on expectations of (in addition to interest rates staying low): - Then current operating cost assumptions (like insurance cost expectations being flat)- A seeming disregard for record levels of new inventory / supply hitting the market- Extremely high inbound migration expectations which are likely to not be met, due to both natural disasters and the boomerang effect when people from California or the Northeast move to the American South and hate every minute of the humidity, the large and relentless swarm of insects, and the occasional hurricane. 

This person pays one full month and now I am switching companies to evict them.The director of operations keeps getting fired and swapping with a new person and then they email me and dont even remember that we had already spoken on the phone about the eviction.I learned more about the eviction process by talking to other local brokers and property management companies who I wasnt even paying yet than I did from my own company.