No reason to fear an audit because of home office.And this silly self-rent trick does not work. 

agree with the other comment, different markets are doing different things. also, "be greedy when others are fearful." what people might be afraid of is, lots of commercial ARMs coming up on their rate adjustments, & the new rates (compared to 5y ago when they first purchased) will kill their cashflow, so they'll sell, and if everyone is doing this at once, supply might outweigh demand, everyone has to sell for less than they planned, and everyone who hangs on to their similar properties gets to recalculate their estimated mkt value with the new going cap rates. i don't personally think this is going to cause as insane of a shift as some people do, but it's all speculative, we won't know til it happens. if you can find a deal that pencils with 30y fixed debt, do it. 

I try to be cordial and brief, but his issues have become increasingly bothersome.He now believes he is the victim of a serious crime, often calling to tell me the police are coming over (which they never do), or asking if I see a specific car on the street because he fears they are there to harm him.

As interest & insurance rates have risen, it makes it much harder to meet these types of checks.At the end of the day, people are more fearful than greedy so now is the time to be greedy. 

Just as you talked about "not skimping on your numbers" to make something work, you can also be inflating your numbers to make it not work out of fear or who knows. 

Has 10k of own $ down.My fear of being 2nd lien holder is -being 2nd lien holder.My atty came up with the 70/30 co ownership to protect our unpaid portion.How would you structure this differently? 

I feared the day I would start withdrawing from my retirement funds  now that money will sit there untouched until I die and all I think about is how many houses I could have bought 10-20 years earlier if someone had taught me about real estate instead of stocks and IRAs  I retired at 40, but 30 would have been just as easy if the information was available  so I’m trying to be that information for the next “guy” (even if she’s not a guy.)Feel free to DM me any more questions  I feel like I’ve shared enough for a confirmed introvert and probably lost 90% of the audience by now.

That leaves me $10k short, which I could pay cash but fear I might be strapped buying our primary residence (203k project). 

However, it’s important to remember that this fear stems from the unknown.

They still have an accurate filing.Perhaps this is all your accountants fear of some sort of liability blow back?