If it is the former, you will want to start networking in cash flowing markets like Texas, the SE and the midwest (you may have some advantages there in your own back yard in MI).

The loan may not be secured per se, but the lender may want to know there's something behind you.

I think if you bring a deal to the table though, you should be rewarded per se if you only have 5% of the funds, I would assume there should be a bump to at least 10% of the profits.

I was in a room full of agents (probably 30) yesterday and only 2 others knew what the approximate market rent for an updated 2/1 in SE Portland should be.

My two cents:  1)  @Tim Swierczek is correct on Minnesota landlord law, landlords are not required to pay a specific utility per se. 

High Cash Value Life Insurance is not an investment, per se, in itself, but a way to put money in a bank account with amazing yield.

I don't think it was a refi per se.

We are fortunate that there are many REIA groups in SE Mich.

If they can afford to pay the monthly rent payments, they could drag on the case for a while if they go in pro-se.

That’s now how it work, but I do understand where you are coming from.If you conduct you hobby as “business”, and your RE company pays your other “business” the service of staging, and then you will get to deduct the expenses the RE level but you will have to pick up income at hobby business level that is  subject to SE taxes as well.