Eric a simple exercise in title work might yield some answers as to the nature of the alley.  

The extra money the seller has on the line is usually a great motivator.Being a conservative investor, the one thing that would stop me from closing (even with a good escrow agreement and plenty of cash to cover the cleanup) would be a situation I considered to have a reasonable risk of someone getting injured or killed due to the nature of the material left behind and easy access to it.

Saving doesn't come naturally for me like it does my daughter.

And do you charge a service fee for any calls even if its just a natural breakdown of an item (ex: a dishwasher)  or only charge a service fee if its obvious misuse.

just notes and investments of a  short term nature.. plus a building business which really does not count.. its building houses and selling them.. or kind of like flipping .. not really investing.. its a business that goes with the market cycles

And, naturally, my most recent post on the blog in which I slammed into the newbies about not becoming Pro members is responsible for at least 100,000 of those...or something like that...:)

I would not personally define my success by the amount of knowledge in real estate I have; I define it by how well I have been able to utilize that knowledge to reach, or facilitate, my major goals in life, one of which is to have enough supplemental income from my rental properties such that it + my pension, when I retire, provides me the same comfortable existence and large safety cushion as it did when I was working, and that being able to retire so young (early 50's) will allow me to reach some of my other goals, long time/distance traveling being one. 

I am looking for some rental property to provide a supplemental income stream when I retire.

Is been incredibly frustrating and especially since I am in no position to self manage right now with the nature of my job.

I also ruled out any place without natural gas.