but to be frank i never used it since we get date downs on the phone and TRIOS e mailed to us while we are on the phone.. a TRIO in our market is the picture of the assessors page.. lots of info.. copy of last recorded deed  how they took title.. and a plat map.. this was key to us.. since all i needed was the last recorded deed and I could do my own warrnety deeds in house.. the deed had the legals.. and current vesting.. so you just did a deed from current owner to my company takes less than 5 minutes to prep.. get them to a notary and walk it into the recorders office.. thats how we did most of our deals as there was never time to get title insurance.. now to be fair one off investors may have trouble taking title this way when they go to resell.. but we have our relationships so they were good insuring our purchases.. but do be careful trying this yourself.. especially hand written deeds.. 

After all, since s/he is getting a cut of your commission, it's in their best interest to help you succeed.

This means you either have to cash in another investment (not always can be done fast enough), or have a cash account (money market) that just sits around making way under what it could be making in a real investment...hoping it's enough when the time comes to need it.Example 2:  Since you are NOT the SDIRA, and you don not own the property (the SDIRA does), you are NOT able to do anything to or with the property...such as cut the grass, handle rehab, etc... 

Ultimately we've cut it out of our marketing budget.

Plus, your tenants are paying you a lot of money, so they deserve to be taken care of.

I wish there were more people who were honest and cared about actually helping others, so that's why I take the time to do things like this.

You still need to maintain the properties, you still need to have good property management, be careful with tenants, hiring contractors, etc. 

Stuff happens.... as long as you are as vigilant as possible to get issues taken care of as soon as possible, then you are holding up your end....many hassle are out of your control.So is it just not being able to use the kitchen sink?

*personally* (I'm an odd duck) I don't care about pictures, or income radius, or pages that talk about what makes San Diego great, etc.   

I suggest you look at local tax rate, insurance carefully, utilities are low if you have to foot the bill.