I will say you're going to have get pretty far from Austin to find many parks that aren't owned by sophisticated investors.

In most states working with pre-foreclosures are sophisticated transactions that must follow specific laws and guidelines.

I have been doing participation notes for years.. keep in mind BP is mainly a landlord site.. not a lot of sophisticated money lenders on this site... there are a lot of sophisticated landlords though no doubt.. 

I find that cap rates can be very deceiving because these depend on how the seller either operates the property, or what their "proforma" says (usually a very blue sky), and if you're dealing in the 1-4 unit space, this can be all over the map with some less sophisticated sellers leaving out basic opex items like property taxes (I've seen it!). 

If the answer to both of these questions is "no", and you are not a highly sophisticated investor ...

(This is from machinery depreciation, carry over grain, and carry over breeding stock (cattle and hogs).

@Tony AsbilleI used buildium before.. it's excellent but can be very sophisticated at times.. preparing financial statements is amazing

or are banks in your your area less sophisticated ?

Ask yourself if the person recommending over- sophisticating rental houses benefits by setting them up for you. 

SOL is a sophisticated investment term meaning “sh*t out of luck”.