Aaron I believe his work is expensive primarily b/c his skilled labor costs are high, not because he's making a fat margin.  

OK - so I'm going to answer your question on the basis of one big fat assumption:You wish to give yourself the best possible chance at earning the best possible ROI that you can work out with reasonable assumptions about rents/cashflow/appreciation. 

Plus a nice fat payout from doing it would be nice.

Commissions are not set, if you and an agent agree on a fat commission (7% vs 5%) on a good deal there is nothing improper about that.

Once I went into bankruptcy to retain our house, I was amazed to find that the one thing I could not liquidate was my timeshare: a luxury item which should be the first thing to go. It's almost as if we're expected to...

Also, losing fat and weight through low carb/low fat diets and not gaining any muscle, left me looking like a stick.

If you've got a fat enough down payment, HML is of course also an option. 

Because if you have gotten an investor mortgage today means you have impeccable credit.. you want to keep it that way.. so you want to have room to exit and keep your credit intact without having to write a big fat check. 

I got one line of credit from Community bank in Jackson for 1 million dollars to use for my HML's and I got it because they could book at as CRA  because I was lending on Jackson properties it worked great for them they could book a big fat CRA loan and lend to a guy like Me..

These "fat cats" will pick up and emigrate to Australia and New Zealand.How it ends will be anyone's guess.