When you have a network of mentors and experienced advisers to double check investment decisions then your fear can be pushed to the side.It is strange though that the American public has very little fear of maxing out their credit cards on flat screen plasma TVs and buying gas guzzling automobiles but has such fear of real estate.

If they have listed the home for sale, that creates public domain of some of that knowledge and you could use that.

Now since my ex-employer is not a publicly traded company, I would need to sell these stocks back to them. 

I've looked in public records and other sources and haven't gotten a solid answer to help me sleep at night.

I live in a designated "Drug trafficking corridor" and the only people that get busted are the super grows on public land, the folks with other warrants, and those doing something stupid/annoying enough to get their neighbor to blow them in, such as stealing the last drops of water from a salmon bearing stream at the height of summer.

It really boils down to how much time and energy you want to put into something and if you want to sell to the public. 

I'd check public records and confirm the person you're talking to is the owner. 

It has been my experience that most agents and brokers want happy clients and will not hold you to a BBA, but in some cases the public will misuse an agent and usurp much of his or her time and want to terminate for little or no reason and may have complete disregard for the agent's efforts. 

The thing I would say about pinellas county(beach area) is they have a big push going on to revamp their public transit that’s on the ballot this year so we will see how the vote goes.

Any government contract will be different, the issue is that public funds are involved and such agreements are a matter of protecting public funds to some extent.A few times, in rehabs, I simply do an on the spot zap of pay or indemnification for real blunders.