Personally, I think most agents fail because they lack an environment to work within that actually wants them to be successful (no where to go and actually work if they want to work or learn the business).

This lending environment is local so just ignore people from 1500 miles away when they tell you what a local lender will do.

You might be surprised at the amount of tax professionals who operate in a virtual environment!

I've been ruminating over the low rate environment recently and whether to refi one or more of my long-term rentals, but I just struggled visualizing the full gamut of financial impacts, e.g. loan cost inefficiency, 30yrs vs 15yrs mortgages, maximizing cash flows vs cash-outs, tax positions, etc.

This isn't inclusive but should give you a good start.

The Master policy was all encompassing for commercial rentals and certain inclusions were not applicable.  

Needless to say, that killed the deal.So yes, in today's environment you need some value add strategy if you expect to have some net positive cash flow at the end.

Actually, YES, not only MAY the act of simply showing a property factually create "procuring cause" and be inclusive of a protected list, BUT just the action of having sent an e-mail of the listing, client having opened and seen that listing, not ever setting foot on premises, YES, that alone CAN be "procuring cause" and LEGALLY include such property into a protected list. 

The current environment is shifting again. 

I try to minimize what I surround myself with so I can really enjoy my environment.