.- It's very difficult to argue about travel being a business expense if you're just going to look at properties, I would argue against it in a majority of cases.- Depends on what you're doing specifically, but usually I'd recommend getting an EIN at least to give access to business bank accounts- Repeating #1, if you're going to a property and 100% of your time is spent doing renovations and the like, sure, but if any of it is for personal benefit, that'd be disallowed.

Going direct to client is the holy grail but is more difficult.

Bryan: California is a difficult place to learn, because everything is so pricy.  

When foreclosures dried up, we went after short sales and when those dried up we started to focus on properties with mold or foundation issues and learned how to fix those and when that started to become too difficult and the rehab was not worth it anymore I had to pivot again and we buy properties in good shape that fell through with another buyer.

It doesn’t have good parking either so it would be difficult to make it a short term rental.I think I’ll pass on it unless something changes.

You might also meet title agents who have resources on, say, foreclosures or probates…and might recommend lenders who actually lend on more difficult projects (as the title companies also know which lenders can close and which are difficult).I also go visit open houses to see what sorts of finish to put on my renovations or to look for the next house or area in which to purchase.  

Those can indicate poor management, deferred maintenance, difficult and expensive upkeep like ocean front which will bring up issues with rising oceans, insurance, and hurricanes. 

This was a clean foreclosure property, which is usually difficult to find.

I don't know how difficult of a task this would be, but suspect it would make for better quality forum content. 

If they did it would likely go back to letting the cities do whatever they want to do, and those legislatures would have their process, so it is difficult and takes a lot of time.