I agree for the passive investor it can make sense to pay par or near par if the return is solid and the exposure is low.I get the appeal of avoiding Dodd Frank issues when dealing with investors as payers rather than owner occupied.

I am currently a Finance Executive at a Fortune 500 company, so I get numbers...now I just need to get some real world exposure to investment Real Estate and the local market.   

Any one with experience on how to best handle this; I think we have exposure by letting them in to remove it unsupervised, I do not feel it is in our best interest to be there supervising, we are looking into retaining an off duty law enforcement officer (pending clearing it with their department as extra duty due to insurance, etc.).

Because debt-financing is not used, the income to an IRA would also not have exposure to UDFI taxation.  

Also, from a liability stand point, you may need to add this additional exposure to the policy.  

Windows can be individually tuned at the time of manufacture to the location and exposure where they are to be installed.  

The buy & rent experience might even make me a better syndication investor as hopefully what I've learned by doing it myself translate into better due diligence and knowing what to look for in a deal.On the other hand, I see syndications as a clear diversifier, in that I can get RE exposure to markets/areas of the country that I might not otherwise be able to achieve on my own, and of course it's convenient (almost like armchair RE investmenting and similar to how one might invest in stocks/bonds as a buy/hold investor).I'm attracted to both approaches, and think both have their place in a diversified RE portfolio, but if one is starting out and wanting to maximimize RE learning while reduing newbie risk, which would you recommend?

@Daniel DietzThere is no issue with a vendor/partner receiving a larger share of income on a deal due to being the dealmaker - so long as you are not a disqualified person to the IRA in question.The IRA will have exposure to UDFI.

We're considering adding more real estate exposure to our portfolio and potentially as away to bring in income with some tax breaks.

They have no risk or exposure.