If you are a licensee... you know it is worth it.. if you are not.. you have to take a hard look at the statistics.. and get a good agent to demonstrate their value.

The transfer of the deed is one way of demonstrating that a property has sold. 

If they stop paying and you have to sue, it will be helpful if you can demonstrate that you have been making good faith efforts to find a new tenant even though this should not be your responsibility. 

@Pat L.I missed the 19%, but our first mortgage was at 16.8 - a tough five years, but is is what got me looking into variable rate mortgages.There was a historical study of mortgage rates in the Canadian market from post WWII until the late 1990s which demonstrated that if you took any 25-year period [the most common amortization in Canada] and compared 5-year term variable and fixed rate mortgages within the 5 decades of the study the borrower always came out ahead going with the variable rate.Now, with 15 & 30yr terms available in the U.S., I expect there would be times when locking into a fixed-rate long-term mortgage would have been advantageous, but I would expect there would have been as many or more times when it would have not been advantageous.

  (2) demonstrates a more 'effective' use of liquid assets; you got more bang for  the buck than in (1) AND still have more to work with to boot.Some are debt adverse, but in economics, debt is also a tax advantage while that dead equity in (1) is - - just that - - dead and of no value.

If this is an clerical error and/or duplexes cannot be condominiums in your jurisdiction, demonstrate you are funded and ready to go, but it is conditional on the vendor sorting out the title.

What I always hear is you need to have a team you can trust and that makes perfect sense, but trust is earned and how do I give all the different players I need to put together the opportunity to demonstrate that trust? 

First thing I'd do is take stock of who I know who has demonstrated wisdom in your geographical area and are investing in an area that you are interested in.

The seller must be related by blood, marriage or law or demonstrate a long-standing, family-type relationship to gift equity to the borrower.

After an initial meeting with the vendor, we drafted an offer demonstrating how a slightly lower sale price (8%) combined with a 5-year vendor financing & a capital gains reserve could produce more than twice as much net income as a straight sale at the ask price.Vendor was intrigued, but declined due to a health issue (I had failed to pick-up on this issue earlier and focused on the statements that the vendor was retiring and the property was the retirement funds).We are now submitting a straight purchase (which will take more cash out of pocket for us, but cost less in the long run) at the same price (due to current rent rolls and needed updates, we do not see the asking price as being supported).