For one, I have a good system, and therefore the management side of things is really low in the time consumption area.

Moral of the story: find out from the local authority what needs to be done, tell them you plan on buying and fixing all of the issues with the property and then follow their instructions to the letter.

Morally it just bothers me when people get paid for something they didn't do (ie. commission as a buyers agent.)

@Basilio Morales an appraisal is usually no more than $495 unless your buying a fairly big house.

@Federico Morales "my parents' tax guy has listed one of their properties as a loss, but without reporting the income for that property"So you are saying that he has only reported the expenses for this property and not the gross rents?

Federico Morales it’s a crazy phenomenon.

Is there something morally wrong with having “no skin in the game” other than leveraging your personal credit and reputation?

Refinancing out principal-pay-down and equity appreciation is also a common tax free way to generate lumpy income for further investment or consumption.

We then get billed that $4100 balance.Something was up, we didn't just increase our monthly water consumption by 4,000% all willy nilly. 

Moral?