I would have basically been able to ride the Melt down with ease.Our cash flow ( supposedly properties ) tanked.  

I am glad you have a heart to help other novice international/OOS investors taken on a wild ride and duped by shady operators every single day.

Anyway, I proposed that I buy the house quickly, and that we can have a local title agent or lawyer draft up the terms, and do the closing in a "proper" fashion, which tells the owner that I am doing this in a legal venue and with appropriate players.  

The spreadsheet shows the context that you could conceivably build up all that wealth from making one investment and just setting it ride.

The S-corp election is to limit my payroll taxes, if there was another company in between, I would think I could eliminate the S-corp status of the paint business, since, as far as I understand it, the LLC still passes through income in a similar fashion.

I guess either I haven't made a solid enough case for RE, or he filters what I'm saying in the same fashion that my wife does, lol. 

The old fashioned way of making money in real estate i.e.

An experienced pilot will avoid the turbulence and the passengers will not even know any existed while an inexperienced pilot may fly right into it and create a rocky ride for all aboard - but they still get to LA.  

My best advice to building a successful Commercial book of business is to pound the pavement the old fashion way. 

I like taking money out of the stock market as we ride the Dow up to 20k, and placing it in hard assets, that are conservatively underwritten, bought right, and will do fine even in a bad economic downturn.