All your other expenses really occur no matter whether a tenant is there or not (taxes, ins, maintenance ect) so eliminating those 2 items has the greatest direct effect on your expense number.The big disadvantage is the tenant has a legal right to stay in your property because they have a piece of paper that binds you to provide housing in exchange for their rent payment.

I say this because HOA fees cover many types of spending that also occur on single or multi family homes (roof, plowing, heating repairs etc) and these costs would not otherwise be taken into the first equation when valuing a single family / multifamily home.

They get pissed because they get caught in not actually doing their homework, but they can't back down from their initial position because they think it will harm their reputation with their client....

The tenant/buyer has a financial interest in the property so they tend to pay on time, care for the house, make repairs when needed and it is very rare in my experience that they do any harm to the property.

This needs to be spelled in the purchase contract between buyer and seller.REO's typically the same, but varies as to bank/agency.County foreclosure auctions, Florida, bank/county pay nothing, no "closing" occurs.

Hi John,NO AMOUNT of possible financial gain is worth putting yourself in harms way.Tell them before meeting at the property you have to meet at a public place at a copy business where you can copy down their drivers license and other information.

On the rare occurance that we get caught, they go get the permit and bill me for the cost.

Usually when you hear people talking about ethics they are bad mouthing someone else because they are losers and don't have much else to do.Do no harm is the best motto.

Thanks for putting yourself in harm's way for the nation.Austin is currently my favorite investment city, but not for cash flow.

We assumed these two things were related, but later found out that the ceiling damage had occurred three years ago when the upstairs kitchen sink drain ruptured and released several gallons of water, some of it going down into ceiling of the unit below.Since we did not know where the wastewater pipe connected to, we considered it a "common element" meaning a part of the condo that is used by multiple owners.