In this economy people stop paying dues and everyone else has to cover expenses, increasing dues and spreading the burden onto already tight budgets.If a project was in great shape and past due dues are less than 10% and the board is rational, maybe ok.You never know when someone might highjack the board by becoming the chair and go crazy on an older property.

As far as the Debt to income ration.

I am glad to know that there are still some people fighting for rationality in the financial sector.

When people get frustrated it's because their want is overwhelming the rational part of their brain.

Right now, a lot of people are stepping away from investing in real estate because they don't see the cash flow...I would state that those people are missing a lot of other benefits to owning real estate if that's all that they are comparing.Hope all of that makes sense. 1 -Rationalization. 

I go with a preponderance of evidence, just like Judge Judy :D - Vote to post ratio- Rough number of votes- Content of the post- My familiarity with the value of the poster's content- Whether the poster raised points I hadn't thought of before- Whether the poster's advice seems rational and reasonable- The type and length of experience of the poster- How the poster is held by other posters I respect- Whether or not the poster is selling anything/looking for business opportunities- Other (as applicable)I usually only look at profiles of either colleague requests or of people who I have become interested/intrigued in their posts.

It's what I would consider "rationalization".  

The asking price is significantly overpriced (priced off stabilized/proforma numbers), so I want to be able to rationally/credibly defend my valuation and potential offer price.

I know most unlicensed brokers want to interpret the statutes to their advantage to rationalize breaking the laws, but the statute is clear.

I mean, their whole business model is predicated on buying (or tying up) a property for below what someone else (hopefully a rational person) will pay for it.So, for me...Return on investment = the net income before debt service divided by the entire cost of the assetReturn on equity = the net income after interest expense (but not principal) divided by your equity (using whatever number works for you)Cash on cash = the net income after debt service (including principal payments) divided by how much actual cash you have in the dealThere are many ways to tweak these numbers using accruals, etc., and that's where you have to think for yourself.Oh, as for GAAP, as a "big-bank" trained credit analyst, I know that GAAP, in the literal sense, is far from perfect.