I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing here.I'm trying to make sense of it- I guess if you held on to something like a brand new duplex, over time, especially after you move out after a year or so, you'd eventually cash flow positively due to increasing rents..

This doesn't mean you get to keep his deposit however you can deduct money from the deposit for time the property was held. 

At one time back in 2004 or 2005 we held about 50 notes, meaning we were receiving and depositing 50 checks per month, sending out 50 invoices by U.S.

For ROI, don't forget to factor in how much the house has appreciated while you've held onto it and mortgage paydown-ie don't just look at rental income vs your initial down payment. 

This means anyone looking at the property will see it is held by a land trust signed by "attorney X."

Conventional wisdom would have said with rates so high (comparatively speaking to where they were) demand and prices would have lessened in more places and more quickly but in many places prices have held steady even as inventory creeps up.

I don't know all the rules but last I checked the funds have to be held in a separate interest bearing account and interest must be paid out each year. 

I held open houses - people flooded in.

THere are many real estate investing meetups that are held around the metro.

Outside of work my interests are sports, fitness, poker and coaching my sons little league baseball team.