He uses real estate as a way to preserve wealth and provide consistent returns from his other businesses.

In fact years ago a local Doctor wanted to rehab & expand an old run down bungalow for an office & heard there was going to be a court injunction filed to preserve the building.

I want to make a profit, while preserving historic structures.

3) Could there be some kind of motivation that drives banks to pay 5 to 6 percent commissions, asset management fees and property preservation fees on millions of properties listed each year, when there are so many buyers that would LOVE to take them off their hands?

In San Francisco and other high price towns, the planning environment is strongly biased towards preserving the status quo.  

If you care about the seller you think creatively.Lease to own is a good solution that helps the seller preserve their little equity they have.Say you put a sign out the front yardLease to Ownowner will finance with $5000 down555-5555You do have to qualify these buyers that want to buy a Lease to OwnI use RMLO which is a registered mortgage loan originator because of Dodd Frank and seller financing.Let's just keep it simple and look at the result.Say you're an agent talking to the seller about lease to own."

Father was chef & restaurateur... following in footsteps with food interest (but will never open restaurant to preserve sanity)... dabble in Porsche restoration.

My understanding is to preserve the 1031 they would have to be TIC model and I do not know another option in that situation.

I used the same house-hacking strategy for my first property in West Duluth and was able to preserve capital with the FHA option.

I've made contact with some property preservation companies that do work for REOs before they get listed on the MLS.