Rents continue to rise, favoring Landlords to buy more and also 1st time homebuyers to buy instead of rent. 

The seller usually didn't realize or care that the buyer was there because of the inclusion of that clause in the contract, the seller's agent was spoken of in an ingratiating fashion, and the investor could present their offer in the most favorable light.

The system heavily favors the landlord in Korea.

I found that by asking around to several banks, I found one that would lend 80% of ARV, and wrap the rehab loan into the process.I had to jump through a few more hoops along the way, and prove out the opportunity with market/neighborhood info, but since I was new to the process(only a few years in...first big rehab opportunity), it was good to have an extra set of eyes confirming the opportunity that I saw for sure.Terms were much more favorable than hard money.Sounds like you are ready to call around to a few banks...I would encourage you to make sure you have some smaller local banks on the list too!

So if your goal is to try to maintain the passive nature of real estate activity, it can backfire on you if you are not a real estate professional.If you are a real estate professional, then you're foregoing the favorable treatment for passive income, capital gains, etc anyway, so an S-Corp is a fairly good setup.  

But my position is that the risk/reward equation on Bay Area real estate is not as favorable right now as the opportunity will be in the future.

I'd have to look to commercial side, which so far, I have found the terms to be much less favorable than what I've been getting on the conventional side.Any thoughts?

Both their shares of profit will be smaller than I originally anticipated, but that works in my favor in the end.

If DTI is favorable, it makes sense of using LOC.

If you know that the market is favorable right now, why would you wait if you're sure you have your plan?