That being said, if the building featured a mix of 2bed, and 1 bed units, I would be tempted to pull the trigger if you could get the rents up fairly soon, especially because of the price of units in MA.

I appreciate the responses and they are very helpful, want to navigate in forum better before I continue

One partner has proposed the following and I want to make sure that from legal and tax perspectives it all makes sense and is legit.. 1.Form an LLC where three partners would each have 1/3rd interest.2.Transfer the property (title) to the LLC via quit claim deed for some price/consideration3.He would buy our shares/interest in LLC so he ends up with 100% ownership4.Mortgage would continue in my name and I would remain the Garantor (he will pay me some fee each year to keep it in my name).

The CE Shop is also good, plus they offer a lot of continuing ed courses.

But, if that is supplementing regular income sources then that can be used to continue to expand the portfolio.That would be the short term goal.

It might not even go down at all depending on how the market treats it, but continue the purchase renegotiate now while you can and take the chances.

@Madeline jI would continue to maximize your 403b contributions but keep in-mind that you generally won't be able to transfer those funds to an IRA until you either stop working for that employer or reach age 59 1/2. 

@Kim Meredith Hampton that was my gut feeling, I just didn't want to run in to any legal issues if his claim did happen to be true but couldn't produce paperwork and I continued with the lease I have.  

I have been trying to get my real estate investing started and I just seem to continue to sputter. 

If you have any questions, use the search feature for checking forums that people have posted in to see if the questions been discussed.