The act of making a counter offer in writing, by law, voids their original offer and they are absolutely no longer obligated to it.Even if you hadn’t voided their original offer with your counter, there is no ability to “sue them to force performance”.  

An individual qualifies as a real estate professional for the tax year if -a. more than 50% of the personal services performed by the taxpayer in all trades or businesses during the tax year are performed in real property trades or businesses in which the taxpayer materially participates; The rental or any other activity that you do not materially participate cannot be counted. andb. the taxpayer performs more than 750 hours of service during the tax year in real property trades or businesses in which the taxpayer materially participates., the rental or any other activity that you do not materially participate cannot be counted.

Everyone in our area takes the 1st option and puts in a little sweat equity for themselves and i still get a performing note with a 100% + ROI.

Vacant units and turnover will kill your investments and whatever I have to do to keep a home tenanted and performing is of the utmost importance.

If you're buying at the $15k-$20k range now, IMO it's the garbage nobody really wants and won't perform well for you.

@Aubrey Ross I third that!

Education, I have purchased some great apartment & syndication books by performing google search rankings & reading Amazon book reviews.

Also Bob when we were shopping for a note servicing company for a performing note product.. we found that many servicers were stationed in Washington.. we ended up with zimple money..  

Some payments are for escrow and not deductible/capitalized until paid by escrow to third party.capitalized closing costs = title work, loan processing fees, etccurrently expensed closing costs = pro-rated real estate taxes, insurance, etcEscrow = escrow payments

The third main appraisal method is to use the cost approach, which ignores the market a bit and only regards the cost to replicate the structure exactly.