That's an enormous amount of risk and faith.

Thanks,Sarah  G'Day Sarah,Congrats on the leap of faith into the wonderful world of real estate investing.Best tip I could give you would be to take your time and soak up as much information on anything and everything real estate.Be it buying locally or out of state, the most important thing is to establish trust and relationships with key people dependent on the strategy you are looking at implementing.Over my career I have witnessed countless of investors getting caught up in online market stats, demographics, charts, etc... only to end up loosing money.As cliche as it mind sound but "Team-work makes the dream work"For example, if you buy the best house, in the best area, on the best street with the best capital growth prospects but your property manager is incompetent or a cheat.

My friend said even if this person could be struggling and be late a couple of times a year or may not make 1 month rent once a year, since she is a long term tenant per her past and paid her rent without fail every month, and is motivated to make the new rental situation work for her financially, long term, if she stays 5 years, although occasionally could struggle a bit, I still will do better than most other tenant choices (frequent turn over, etc.)My rent is still covered by my past tenant at the moment even though the property is vacant as the Lease has stipulations for that the past tenant has honored faithfully.

Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause.

If there was a good faith effort by the county to actually enforce their end of the deal, for the "safety of guests", I would agree. 

Obviously there are some appreciation and tax benefits, but another investment property will also have those same benefits.Oftentimes, the 1031 can definitely be a leap of faith when you don’t have another property lined up to purchase.

Legals mate,Goes into company operating account and not title company.So in a way it isn't a "Deposit".Plus, would never hold onto it and would always refund as we aren't in the biz of "stealing" deposits per se.It's just a sign of good faith that an investor is willing to put their money where their mouth is and the verbiage also specifies this clearly.If they trust us and are going to purchase a turnkey property from us for $80,000 in cash for example, then there should be no hesitance in paying a $5,000 refundable deposit either.Who bulks at this, isn't serious and hasn't done enough research on our market, company and operation so it's a "no fit".Introduced this a while ago as a protection method to not waste time on calls, deal presentation, company resources, etc... only for someone to go MIA and steal all the inside knowledge they gained from us.

Off Market,submitted a non refundable deposit in good faith to entertain the seller that i was a serious buyer 7 that i would close escrow

They may have entered the purchase agreement in good faith, not realizing they are being defrauded.

@Faith R Harrison You just found him