This results in making the equivalent of 13 monthly mortgage payments a year, but, more importantly, the increased payment frequency will reduce the overall amount of interest paid on the mortgage.

I agree you will have much more success on focusing on a solution that works for the seller vs. having a few fancy outdated guru techniques that you try to ramrod down a sellers throat.I don't want you to feel like you need to get the equivalent of a law degree & and an MBA in finance.

Bryan,What percent of one's portfolio, if any, do you recommend be held in cash or cash equivalents?

As an equivalent GS-13 civilian, he was also the U.S.

@Sean S.I would think someone trying to DIY an LLC operating agreement would be analogous to someone trying to perform surgery on themselves to save money.There's too much you're not considering if you're using a template online, probably 704(b) and substantial economic effect as well as state partnership law and writing your capital partner in as the functional equivalent of an LP so he has no exposure to SE taxes.Having an attorney draft the agreement is money well spent. 

It seems from your comments that you are imagining the HOA fees as equivalent to what one might pay a property manager - which is often money well spent to save the landlord's time. 

Due to differences in the value of currencies, if my VA were to earn the equivalent amount here in the US, they would be paid ~$38/hr.  

They are the moral and financial equivalent of a leech that just materializes in the swamp beneath the foundation upon which you thought you purchased your property.They are a living emptiness, a meaningless void such that their presence somehow brings negative air pressure to a vacuum.

., she trades her membership interest in the LLCs for the equivalent fee simple ownership in the underlying properties and then immediately sells that fee simple interest to you for cash.

SO before that happens I would like to get at least an equivalent stream of income...