Sorry, son, whenever you have an investment with an uncertain outcome, but pretty good odds, you'll have risk and some level of discomfort.The only ways to overcome this are by knowledge and learning how to accept that risk and manage how it affects you. 

Foreign investors choose properties in Japan, outside of Tokyo, for cash flow and affordability particularly during uncertain times in other markets.

It would be very unusual for a owner occupant to have "their title company".  

One of the other more unusual things was the financing.

If I'm uncertain if I will have business activity in the PA-based LLC for the rest of 2018, do I need to still pay the Franchise Tax?

There are some "gurus" that will even give you a plan for free if you agree to do a deal or two with them.The only time you need to write out your own plan is if you're doing something more unusual; such as converting private residences into commercial property, rehabbing a vacant high-rise tower, or ...Residential rehabs, rentals, bird dogs are all pretty standard business strategies and they work.

A 10% increase means you lose $3000 on the deal while a 5% increase makes for an $8000 loss.Ben Bernanke himself says the economic outlook is "unusually uncertain".Buy a house that makes sense right now.

Nothing unusual, just the regular stuff.Say you bought a building with a roof that was passable.

Apparently that is what similiar homes sold for in the area and if there is a mortgage involved that is what the lender is going to base their mortgage on.This is not an unusual occurance the seller may or not know what their house is worth and a third party has put a value on it.Time develop your horse trading skills.

But since you don't have written contract, the contractor can demand payments for what he believes is work already completed and you don't have a whole lot of recourse since you didn't have this payment schedule pre-arranged... its not unusual to have 3-5 payments over the course of the project that align with milestones of project progress. so divide the entire project bid into thirds or fifths and pay out based on what your contractor agrees with and work these out in advance next time.