And this has been quite an eye opener exercise.  

The buyer had no problem with an assignment fee of 3.5%-5% as long as it also counted toward their downpayment (if and when they exercised their option).  

My experience is that becoming an agent is an exercise in money going out the door for a good bit.  

Once you go through the pro-forma exercise a few times in excel it gets pretty easy. 

However in scenario two.. one needs to exercise normal home buying protocol.. just like you were buying a home in LA to live in.. you would and or your agent would request the normal inspections for you.

More importantly, the seller needs to KNOW (in writing, signed by the seller in front of an attorney, in my opinion) that the due on sale clause has a potential of being exercised by the bank.

I am always trying to enhance my DD skills and would love to see what others are doing.

For example a common strategy in real estate investment is to find a well performing asset with a good cap rate (i.e. good property level return) and further enhance this return by financing/leveraging it so as to yield even higher CoC (i.e. investor level return).So conceptually we can say that when Leverage = 0 then CoC = Cap Rate.

It was actually just exercising an option to buy from last year. 

To enhance our understanding, we are seeking connections with local brokers, lawyers, contractors, and professionals experienced in working with foreign investors.