Feel free to contact me to know my experience with Rondo.

That usually ends in a lot of pain. 25 years of doing this, never even a deposit asked for on the front end. 

what I'm telling people about hilltop is the only reason it's going up is because of the average housing price in columbus being pushed and the lack of inventory. when I started I'd have bought here too. if I was going to invest here I'd look at houses built after 1947 without knob and tube wiring, etc. the old housing is the problem. we are building now in downtown adjacent. land is a buyer's market and it's much less competitive and easy to get the numbers to work. there is very little construction in 43204 and I've transitioned to new construction triplex now with entitlement and larger multifamily projects feel free to message or call anytime. personally, l like new construction in 43203, 43205, 43206, 43223, 43222 right now and obviously 43215 which you have to have at least 600k in cash to get the land to entitle and want to build at least 100 units to make it worth it. 

Feel like I am waiting for the next shoe to drop with this person.

General feeling is that there's no reason until you get a lot of them and go big-time.

And my guru fee was just feeling proud of helping a nice BP member with a deal. !!

I don't anticipate this happening again, but if you feel it might, I'd make sure expectations are set with agents before each showing.

Do you feel there will be major appreciation (more than the rest of the country) in the near future?

I live in BC but own a duplex in Ontario, have a property manager, but the tenants on the one side I inherited with the purchase 3 years ago, and they have been a pain ever since, and below market rent too - this just may be my opportunity to get them out.

That w2 still does not limit you to things like the short term rental loophole for instance, which can help you offset those painful CA taxes.