I bought my first house in Los Angeles that I "house-hacked" before the term was even coined back in 2003 (way before the crash).  

Since you gave the rose tinted glasses scenario in case of default let me give the other side of the coin. 22yo E-4 gets married and buys a house out in town, rolls his funding fee into his mortgage and lives there for three years. 

I'm out of Phoenix and I have heard both sides of the coin.

If this is true then I would coin the term The 'X' factor of RE vs RMD! 

On the other end of the coin not all money is good money for an agent and it sounds like he believes you are a time waster, they don't get paid unless you close. 

I'm actually not sure if I need to have the title/escrow co in the same county as the property and am trying to find that out but in the mean time I need to get my PSA out with the agreed price asap so any help and recomendations would be much appreciated!

I have donated more houses to churchs and charity than you have fingers.. so I understand both sides of the coin. our state its illegal to wholesale the way you guys do and the way the guru's teach it but I bet the guru will take your money even though they SHOULD know its illegal in the state the person paying the fee is working in.here is a snippet from our state department of real estate financial investigator a talk we had this week.

For example coin laundry, passing on gardener fees to the tenants, etc.?

I don't know who said it but real estate is a get rich slow scheme.I was at a private conference and the speaker was coining the term " refi till you die"  I just cringed...

what you should about Baltimore you get what you pay for.If you are going to look at houses lower than 100K, it can be a huge loss or decent gain, it can be a coin toss.Anything over 150K or more, you are getting closer to safer areas and lower the risk and lower the cash flow.You decide what you want basically.When people says bad stuff, they all invest in areas where you would not get out of their car, get spend close to nothing on houses and complain about it. then go spen 5 times more and suddenly decide that is better.I am a baltimre investor/agent, I am pretty happy and dont have one house in the hood.