We arrive in Portugal at the end of March and once we have got ourselves sorted I will see if we can get a few people around for a meet up. 

I think the motivation there is to keep the tenant renewing. 

If I get motivated enough in the near future I may do more research and experimentation with it.  

Finding some sort of value-add aspect or buying at a discount means you either create or walk into equity, which protects you.

It's frustrating to finally have it all sorted out then get a notice that the mortgage has been sold again and there is a new servicing company taking over and the mess starts all over.

That sort of difference in expense with turnover/vacancy means that the approach to tenant retention means something different to the business.

I think there’s some sort of option of to do a little refi on both house 1 and 2 and get the money needed to wipe out the line of credit(allowing for bigger flip opportunities, especially if I partner up with someone) and also renovating that garage space with the private investor as long as it is under 1000/month.

I have $25K cash for a down payment and can add $20K/year ($1,600/month) toward payments.No W2s, I've looked into building a small home right away and using a bank statements loan (have about 8800. monthly income) , but with 9%+ interest rates, it’s beyond my budget.Is there any sort of creative financing ideas possible or private lender possibilities?

Every unit has its own "microsite" of sorts with seperat msg threads and you can't write your own descriptions (which is understandable as they don't have seperate websites for different countries so they write "translation safe" descriptions for you), but still, it's no Airbnb.

-I'm fairly careful with communication , but again, I know doing business online is way riskier, but I want to ask: Typically, I would trust someone who seems very in-depth, informative (gives statistics and numbers), and basically would give me thorough steps (including worst-case scenarios and what would best fit my situation)^^would people who have experience say that even with the above, some agents/lenders/PMs would still be sort of out to get your money and do a lousy job?