Dated in places, but they issue new editions regularly and should be due to release another soon.Understanding the Law of Zoning and Land Use Controls, by Barlow Burke.

I may have to extend my HUD search more up north.

Towards the end of my last e-mail, I was releasing you from your obligations under the lease to remain and pay rent for the duration of the contract, meaning that if you are unhappy with my services as landlord you are now free to leave without [consequence specified in the lease] if you provide XX days of written notice to me. 

B2R will cost you $700.00 for a legal review to review the LLC docs and they also hit you you for some excess massively expensive insurance requirements - and you will NOT be able to sell any part of the portfolio off as they do not allow for deed releases....So you have to hold all the properties and NOT sell one until you sell them all as B2R prices then as one security.There are better sources that will give you a commercial loan and price it close to 6.5% if you have good scores...Your idea of closing costs are accurate...What costs are there involved in closing?

They then withhold a portion of the funds and release them to me as the renovations are completed or upon the completion and rental of the unit depending on how extensive the renovations are.  

The balloons are fairly common I have found, just not the payments extending past it.  

If one of my insurance agents is struggling to meet his sales goals and I know he is spending a significant amount of time trying to do RE deals (wholesaling in this case)... how lenient and understanding do you expect me to be when he wants his draw extended another 3 months?  

I agree with Jon to a point, the reason you have reserves is to cover unexpected expenses and having 6 months PITI means you'll generally have the payment covered, the regular rent may cover more such as a minor repair and clean ups for that vacancy.Having additional properties and holding funds for all isn't really necessary as a slush or escrow fund as the chances of having extended vacancies or expenses in all your properties at the same time is pretty slim.You should have the deductible for your hazard policy as well, if you have an insured loss you'll need.You also need to consider your ability to access other funds, not just from you fund but total assets and the ability to borrow quickly.Jon's method is pretty safe, but as you add more properties you can fine tune funds held in reserve taking into consideration your abilities to cover a disaster. :)

I have a second book, "Insider Secrets to Financing Your Real Estate Investments," which was released in December 2004.

i would if i were in that situation. so, these smaller dollar houses, the houses with lower loans, just sit. in the mean time, they fall apart. sometimes, and i have bought 2 houses this way, banks will just write the house off. if they figure the house will never bring enough money or they will have far too much money wrapped up in keeping the house for years before they can sell it, they just file a release of lien or release of mortgage on the house with the county and basically write it off their books. then, the previous owner has a free house. most of the time the owners have moved on and have no idea the bank did this because most often, the bank will send the letter to the last know address, which is the house they foreclosed on, and the people have already gone. what you have to do then is first, find the release of lien paperwork at the county. get a copy. find the owner. this part can be hard. what i did was run a check on the persons name to see if they own any houses in the area. chances are, if they moved, they rented a place, but they may actually own another house near by. do what you have to do to find them. look in the white pages if you have to. both of mine were found within 3 miles of the house. in the case you are talking about, it sounds like this guy is dead. ok, did he have any relatives?