Ironically the market has performed very well in spite of oil although the higher end for Houston ($350k and above) has slowed substantially. 

Ironically the name of the lender was Lemons and Associates. 

There are more risks involved (ironically!)

[He beat me to the punch as I was out watching Iron Man 3 when I saw this.] ;-)The only thing I will add or highlight is your ability to qualify for financing.

The only major issue I see is that he has had many major expenses last year due to a plumbing issue from the cast iron pipes that caused one unit to be down for a very long time and did cost a lot of money to fix.

So, if your scenario actually came to fruition, it would be because of an attorney and, to use an attorney as you suggest to protect one from the actions of attorney seems ironic and poignant.

Ironically, I have identified Winston Salem as a great market as you have done so as well.  

Hardest project to date was an Iron and wood stair railing...never again.

I have collected all of that data above during the evaluation of the deal but did not think of presenting it to the lender in that fashion, I will definitely do that.As we are still ironing out the details with the seller and the deal is not yet under contract, I opted to just go with a general question to a guy who was my closing agent on my primary residence last month.Just to reiterate however, will the bank let me pocket 10k of their loan if the LTV is great?

Ironically, I hated real estate and couldn't wait until I was 13 so I could go work at my grandparents' dairy farm, where I mowed hay, fed calves and milked cows all summer.