Of course, many investors bend/break this rule, but that's another risk.2) If your bid wins the foreclosure auction, you then have to deal with getting rid of any occupants - who may steal/damage everything they can in retaliation:(3) You MUST have a great crew on the ground that can minimize surprises - not easy to do on your first deal.Regardless if you buy a foreclosure or other property, read our copy & paste advice below:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

No breed restrictions.

There are DTI and underwriting challenges of course, but do the best you can in keeping loans in only ONE person's name. 

Breeding Hybrid to Hybrid, you could get Tall, Dwarf, or middle of the road trees. 

Spend time finding the best company you can in a market you have researched. 

You can test that side of it out to see if it's a good fit for you, but take some time to find which side is the right fit for you because that will be a key to achieving long-term success.Also build as many sponsor relationships as you can in the beginning because that'll give you plenty of options when you find a deal. 

My question is - is it more advantageous to have me own the business entirely so that I can capitalize on the tax deductions & tax refunds so that I can in turn contribute more capital to purchase future properties together?  

Here's what I do....again it may be controversial, but there is such an enormous pool of tenants that have vouchers that I can do this and still have plenty of people...No smoking of any kind.....I don't care if you have a card that says you need "it" for medical reasons.No evictions, ever.No felonies in the last 5 years.No dangerous breed "animals" or pets  and when fully grown the pet can't weigh more than 20 lbs.They will pay for a background check through SmartMove that costs $40.00I don't care what "story" they have, I don't sign the RFTA package until they give me one full months depositI actually don't care what their credit score is because the housing authority pays most of their rent.I don't care about their oncome because the housing authority pays most if not all of their rent. 

You are an extremely rare breed in being willing to discuss a sponsor in a negatively light publicly. 

A dying breed we are in this day of working 'on'your business.