It's those maniacs that buy homes cash via quit claim deed off of craigslist that really get screwed.Make sure your property manager is a licensed real estate brokerage.Google Clayton Morris scam and/or Morris Invest scam for a cautionary tale of what not to do when buying turnkey real estateUnderstand you can not eliminate all risk, only mitigate it.

Again, I'm NOT saying to be rude, lie, scam, or BS anyone, but you'll get a lot further knowing persuasive speaking techniques than not.Nick

Also, this has been mentioned before on BP, about aged entities being sold as a credit scam....I don't know who could possibily think that Joe Jones had ABC, LLC for 3 years and established a good credit rating (actually experience) and then Harvey Deadhead buys it and expects to walk into a lender and use ABC's old credit standing without a lender seeing that the LLC has changed ownership and then look at new management and the new owner.....because the lender will!

The above is much different than the actual "investment scams" that take advantage of homeowners offering a loan in exchange for 10% down, schemes to rehab and sell FEMA trailers, etc.  

Many local attorney I talked they called asset protection with Wyoming LLC a scam .

Apparently their scam works like this...the investor has the work done.

This poor lady Diane sent these scam artists her ID thinking they would loan her money.

The main points I wanted out of the question was 1) in what ways can I be scammed, 2) in what ways can I protect myself, respectively, and 3) was the deal worth it?

I was at an REDC last month and I spent several previewing properties and the best deals that actually closed did so around 90% to 95% of FMV.The real scam here is that these properties are marketed for 10% above FMV as an REO and then when unsold, are remarketed and sold for 90 to 95% of FMV.

They have so much incentive not to scam when they don't have a salary and are paid based on % of cash flow.