Need to understand that just forming an LLC is not a magic bullet to protect your personal assets, the "stock ownership" of your LLC is a personal asset, if you have a personal matter and are under insured, your business assets may be at risk anyway.

Banks want to lend on performing assets.  2 years is a magical number for most.  2-3 is longer that most hard money but it does give a private lender a cycle to their money that is more desirable than the long stretch.  

If I had a magic elf to help us out, I would put them on the task of driving by each property once a month for exterior observation and would have them do on-site visits each season, with a checklist of maintenance items.

Maybe someone else doesn't mind working for free, or thinks a 700sf house will magically appreciate huge in my market (never going to happen), or has a bunch of surplus stuff and can do this reno for $20k.

So here were we buy deeds, not tax liens, new deed gets filed and that can trigger a response from the mortgage company in their back office magic and they they get redeemed.  

A common theme I see around here lately is that everyone wants some sort of magic touch to find out about real estate investing.

I know a lot of people will read the headline of this blog and move right along to something else.Because, in reality, there’s definitely a segment of investors - particularly new investors - who aren’t in the position to actually pay cash for an investment property… at least an investment property that’s habitable and in a respectable area.But, for those of you in the position where you could pay all cash for an investment home, I’m sure you’ve debated the idea of paying cash, or using a mortgage - leverage - to help pay for the property.This is a long-standing debate in the investment world and one that really doesn’t have a magic bullet answer.At the end of the day, the answer all comes down to your personal needs and wants and what makes the best sense for you as an investor.So, I thought I would spend some time discussing Pros/Cons of both and also talk about how we’ve used both over the years during our investment ventures.Pros of Paying Cash for a Rental Home Initial Cost Savings - Mortgages aren’t free.

I feel like I am getting close to that magic "financial freedom" mark. 

Like any landlord, no screening company has a magic wand that can detect false information on an application.

Was this just some excel magic or did you use some other software or programming language?