My accountant told me not to take out a recourse loan, one that allows for deficiency judgments (this would bemy first loan).

You have to keep records of day, time and who you talked to as well as the number you faxed to and have them on hand every time you call.What are you doing to protect the homeowner from a deficiancy judgement.

Also, I don't know about your state laws and your networth because the lender may try to go after you for the deficiency, but that's the chance I'm willing to take.

If IRS comes backs and reallocate the partnership items ( depreciation), you will be paying the whole cash flow you had in a year in a deficiency. 

Also make certain your profit does not leave them with tax or other deficiency - if your profit is on the back of the homeowner - watch out for the local prosecutor.With all of that said, I got out of Short Sale flips because I could not get title - is there title for these in CA still?

One approach that has worked for me (with tenants that have a good history) has been to offer to allow them to catch up deficiencies over a 3-4 month period with slightly higher payments.

So the next buyer I took them wanted deficiency balance notes in the middle of June-July 07 and they were going to spend $10m-$50m per month.

Deficiency judgments can only be obtained from cash financed notes, not installment or equity funded obligations.

Any property mangers out there able to help me with understanding some terminology.I recently made it the final stages of an interview process for a property inspector position, and have been assigned a case study in which I am shown a number of photos of a rental unit and asked to identify any "deficiencies" in the photos.

@Mark Parzych I like your point about the upgrades and differences in costs, especially installing them now and now that you are going to sell your rehab.If you want to become a real stickler owner, you can create a punchlist of all the outstanding and deficient items (like the not straight outlets), and then go around and mark everything you see with little pieces of blue tape.