Or could it be that it has a very stubborn, wealthy owner, still paying the mortgage and refusing to look at reality?  

Dolly is very wealthy and very well connected.Joe Gore

.#4 is treated differently, but is a very complicated structure not recommended without custom professional advice.There is no "best" structure anyway, just like there is no best diet and no best job.

The cost of housing here is high and a lot of investors buy properties here after seeing a profit from investing out of state or after accumulating some sort of wealth .I do see myself personally buying in Israel but not in my current situation (plus I believe that the real estate bubble will pop in a few years so I'm patient)

When those things are done correctly, it works beautifully, and you can certainly become wealthy investing in RE, like most other things in life.Unfortunately because of the Feds monetary policies over the last few years, they have essentially promoted a re-hash of 02-07, and there is no shortage of people on BP who promote the SAME ridiculously high leverage program as Gurus, and then turn around and bash those Gurus systems for being irresponsible. 

Seeing that the candidates are usually wealthy or from fairly wealthy families prior to taking the position......why fight for such a position, what's really going on.

Maybe their wealth is so great they dont need this website any longer

Lot's of truely wealthy/experienced people with different backgrounds.

I believe the key to being wealthy and happy when you get older, at least for me, is owning many buildings.  

Lot's of wealthy folks hidding in them hills...