20 years old, armed with a RE License and BP.

I am explicit that the security deposit is not last month's rent in our leases, so make sure that your lease says the same thing.  

I guess if you bought someone with a broken arm a bottle of whiskey it would help them out for a while.What would really be interesting is if they created a tax incentive that allowed an investor to create a seller second on a property they sold to a home buyer, then they could turn around and donate the note to a charity and get a tax credit for the amount of the note.

First and foremost, I'm seeking a resource or two that provides fairly explicit guidance in how to independently evaluate markets on my own.

I agree with Ralph here; this is not "arm's length" enough to get the banks to look at it the way you want.

Lately I've gotten promo offers for their 5/1 and 7/1 ARM loans.

The objective is to erect firewalls around the equity, both explicit (insurance, entity structure) and implicit (murky, difficult to trace ownership).

J Scott is probably one of the smartest guys I know in this industry and he really helped me get my arms around this last week when i was first informed about these encumbrance restrictions placed on the loans.

Mandeep -- it has to be an "arms length" transaction, can't involve a relative.

There may be events where your brother or sister may need to show this transaction being at arm's length and a note was made to finance the transaction.b.