@Nancy Roth My position and belief has always been that a contract cannot expire because the other party has not or cannot honor their side. 

Belief:  I tell folks what I have done, how it works, and the risks and rewards.

The market appreciation at that time on the previous 5 years was also over $100K.So many investors are willing to have negative cash flow at purchase with the belief in a few years the rents will have appreciated enough that it now has positive cash flow. 

What are your core beliefs, and where does your passion lie?

It is a common belief amongst people who try to sell their own home that they can sell it and "save the commission".

I have been religiously following your posts and blog.

An LLC in California can be quite a burden.1) at $800 per year, it bites away at a good part of your cashflow if you're looking at a single fam or similar; and that $800 fee is assessed yearly2) no bank will lend to an LLC; LLCs need credit, so if you really want this route, you can buy a "shelved LLC" with existing credit history.3) there's a fanciful belief that LLCs protect their owners; they merely protect the assets that belong to the LLC; you're still going to be liable if someone gets hurt on your property, and it's going to come down to how good of a lawyer you have4) if you buy a property and transfer it to your LLC, that can trigger the due-on-sale clause (though I understand this is rare for a bank to call you on it)Now as Lynn M. and Kurt K. have mentioned, there's a great alternative, the umbrella policy.

Other investors want to use OPM (Other People's Money aka leverage) as much as possible under the belief that when the property value increases, the return on his/her small downpayment becomes that much larger.  

I don't know what phase of development this project is in, but another indicator of institutional belief in this market... see the link below from @ColumbusBusinessFirsthttps://www.bizjournals.com/co...

That talk and belief gets instilled into their heads at an early age.