I want to get a clearer idea of what travel expenses I can write off, but I don't want to get into a gray area of risky tax practices, so here's my question: If I'm in town for a week, can I treat the first three days as a work trip and the rest as personal time, and write of the airfare and business costs with confidence that I'm not muddying the waters?

We have been burned by two different transactions where the seller used our offer to drive up the price of someone they were already planning to sell to.This week we made an offer on a 6-plex in our vacation area which is 100% long-term rented currently.

I guess my question is whether there is good way to figure out who the owner of the property is since it's empty and not on the market.Another possible option is a distressed property, with a rehabbed interior and a sad exterior/ roof/ yard on Byrom St that has been on the market for 4 months with price drops, and up until last week had a giant tree hanging over it which was just removed.

The new tenant is breaking an 11 month lease 3 weeks into it.

We just had our judgement last week.

I'll share the final numbers once it's complete in a few weeks.

Keep in mind in no way am I saying your aren't doing most of what a PM would do - you just aren't allowed to legally have anything to do with Leasing, so I encourage you not to refer to yourself as a PM to shield you from liability.As for the years of licensing it would take to accomplish becoming a PM (getting back to my "held by a Broker**" bit).... more good news is that you can reduce this to weeks.

All of the hard money lenders I've been looking up appear to take at least 2 weeks to close and since this will be my first deal, I expect that they will take longer to approve the funding (if they go through with it at all).  

Hi Melissa, The Auction i was in was Ending 24Hrs from My post Date, And there were Simply Too Many Houses & I Did not Have Them Narrowed Down Enough as the Auction of 6,800 Houses Closed .Although I Learned A lot throughout the  (Online Tax-Foreclosure ) Auction process, This Part/the " Legal Land Description + Matching it to a " plat Map" Really shook me and ate up Most all of my time Trying to figure this out ,As people/the County were "selling an Address" only to find out it was a Vacant piece of Land next to the home that they hadn't paid the taxes on.This was Frightening that i would purchase Something a Home only to find out it was Not a Home at All.ANYHOW , I WANTED TO GET BACK AND THANK YOU (though this seems alot of work for 1 home when looking at 100s-1000s to Analyse) Wish there were a More Accessable way for the public to match up these "Legal Land Descriptions" Rather then Feeling as if your "Bugging" an Agency for their info..Esp if for Several different properties.I will be Entering another Auction in a Week or so & (Although i will really need to narrow down my interests to use this method) I AGAIN AM GREATFUL FOR THE INFO & WANT TO THANK YOU SO MUCH, I LITERALLY COULD NOT FIND ANY, UP TO DATE,  LEGITIMATE RESOURCES,HOPEFULLY THIS WILL HELP NEXT TIME :)

My plan was to open an account with the bank in the next week, and perhaps approach them after the 3-6 month mark (seasoning period) and talk to them about refinancing into a long-term loan.