To answer your questions here though:Alternative options - I was going to sell all my stocks and etfs, take out a HELOC, and some credit cards to try to shoestring together enough to the deal without a hard money loan. 

T First person I've heard say I look forward to the losses.

I personally find it ridiculous.

- property values soften (keep it realistic, US real estate has never lost value over any given 10 year period in history and you can't plan for a nuclear war..)To counter-balance these negative scenarios you have: cash reserves, credit lines, W2 income, maybe business income.

By year 5 we had around 55 people.We did hire a marketing person but frankly marketing wasn't our strong suit. 

@Nina Erlandson Personally, I have not heard of Obie Insurance.

I have a 2-person unit with a glass top dining table and it has worked well.

Hi everyone! I'm Igor - a revenue management expert with over 10 years of experience in the hospitality industry. I started my career working for Marriott in New York and Toronto, specializing in dynamic pricing and...

I make sure I screen each potential tenant thoroughly (background and credit checks) and require references.

If you are looking at FHA because of credit score, then I would work on credit scores to qualify for conventional financing or see if you can get a very strong coborrower with high scores.