Because in Port Richey you could have tenants ruin your property.

No broker is going to ruin their reputation by suing a client and spend at least $10k in legal fees to do so in order to make $1k.Like many contracts, this is more-or-less a "gentleman's agreement", one made of mutual respect for the business relationship.

The divorcee can ruin your life.

My point here is that 'forced equity' (equity you create by rehabbing a prop that needs work, thereby increasing its market value by more than you spent on the rehab) isn't actually money in your pocket until you sell, and markets can be fickle, contractors can overcharge, surprise issues come up, bad PMs can ruin your investment real quick.

I am assured by him that I would need to be trying very hard to ruin myself or doing something illegal to be held personally liable.

These investments still have to compete with securities and other investments and I don’t see how the reward justifies the risk for these projects if you have to sign your whole life away in the event the banks ruin the economy again.

I know people do it.. but if you don't have the ability to close you could put someone in financial ruins and potentially open yourself up to litigation.

For instance, my company helps clients after they purchase an investment and gives them someone that they can fall back on and the last thing we want is your property to go vacant or worry about repairs once you purchase the property which is why each property goes through extensive research.Keep in mind whether the property is old or new, if you have a bad tenant or a bad property manager in your investment the age of your property wouldn't matter because one bad tenant can easily ruin your ROI.  

@Maxwell Milholland realtors always work for you brother but like someone said, they don’t like to ruin their reputation. 90k on a 100k property is not low balling.

The Northeast is another great example of a place where the political (read: Tax) climate can ruin a completely good deal.