@Drew SygitThank you Drew, like mentioned above, I will be SURE to make sure I make my research and truly understand the difference in services versus just looking at the monetary value side of things.

The City of Santa Monica Attorney's Office is bullying my family (as well as other mom-and-pop property owners) into accepting a Section 8 voucher from a terribly problematic current tenant who:1) Has harassed other tenants to the point that they feel physically endangered and decided to move out of the property2) Shouted racial slurs at people working on the property and threatened to call immigration enforcement on them3) Has vandalized the property as well as that of neighbors, including ripping the windshield wipers from an elderly, handicapped neighbor's car4) Is currently harassing potential buyers of the property, preventing us from being able to sell it / causing monetary damagesBackground:My family has owned and operated a modest multi-family property in Santa Monica for 45+ years.

They gave us the house, and their attorney had us put some sort of monetary value on the house so we just gave 10 dollars.THAT is motivation!

This fact has monetary value in and of itself. 

It becomes a relationship so that when the subject of fees come up later on, deciding on whether or not to join is less of a monetary decision than an emotional one.

Such as: Governmental Policy (laws, acts, committees, and "affordable housing")The Fed  (monetary policy, interest rates and easy money)Federal Agencies (Fannie/Freddie/HUD)Lending (easy money, non-conforming loans, No Doc loans, Ninja loans) Fraud (everywhere?

Therefore, by nature of it's use, that unit is evading New York City's mandatory hotel tax of 5.785%To curb this growing issue (AirBnb has an estimated 25,000 active listings in the 5 boroughs), Mayor Deblasio has created a special task force to seek out, inspect and impose monetary fine's on the individuals responsible.

Those are all costs (even if they're not monetary costs). 2) Conversion: We have lots of things built into our system that help increase conversions and SEO that most people don't notice.

I think what your friends might be getting at is feeling there is a lot to lose for all parties if something goes bad (skin in the game).If you are not putting much money in and just making the commission upfront they might feel you have nothing monetary to lose like they do.You just have to talk through these issues until everyone is comfortable or not proceed in the future on other properties.

I have a buddy of mine that did a short sale a few years back, but he didn't have any monetary assets.