Use your HELOC to purchase the duplex outright for $118K.Your brother’s $50K down payment can immediately go toward reducing your HELOC balance, leaving a remaining balance of $68K.Create a formal lease-to-own agreement with your brother.

If you’re offering $450K, then you could offer to take over the $120K payments and seller finance the remaining $330K.

This is our "8 x 8 project" - there, I've said it out loud to remain accountable! 

Appraisals, Lenders and Rates : Beyond the transactions that were literally in process (sales, listings, leases, seller carries) are properties that remain amongst vacant lots.

Sure, some voucher recipients game the system (years ago, I had a tenant who knew exactly how many hours she could work and how much income she could earn to remain on the program).

I believe that while it is a buyers market and renters market right now, these conditions will change within 5 years, because: - The long-term fundamentals that drive people to migrate to Florida remain unchanged, and a steady influx is a reasonable expectation. - Supply will abate. 2026 and 2027 will see less than half the deliveries nationwide of of 2024 and 2025, respectively, and I bet that is even more extreme in a market like Tampa.

Competition remains strong but it doesn't mean your goal is impossible to reach.

@Patrick Roberts wrote:"@Jay Hinrichs I know of one person who is buying high LTV preforeclosures Subto while they’re off market by paying the owners around $10k-$15k to walk away, quit claiming them into an entity, then seller-financing the entity holding title to the property to owner-occupants under the pretense that it's for commercial purposes on interest-only balloons at inflated values."

It seems like I need to check further away from the DMV area.My feelings are if you want “cash flow” you should buy a bond (I really like the tips rate right now) there is next to no reason to buy real estate for cash flow, if you are going to buy you should buy with appreciation in mind, which is not to say that’s the route I’d go, I’ve been liquidating properties to put in stocks and money market funds over the last few years and u just did the math and I’ve come out well ahead, but just to say there are arguments for stocks/bonds, there are arguments for levered appreciation, but the cap rates pretty much anywhere aren’t worth it vs an inflation protected bond, especially since a 3/rd of inflation is real estate anywhere, you could get “cash flow” and inflation protection much easier through a tips.

But the mindset remains that the structure just loses its value over time.That's not to say I think property investing in Japan cannot work -- it's just the parameters are quite different from places like the US (like many things in Japan!).