I think the property would be worth 25K and possibly 30k when done but right now I am not confident in the ability to sell anything until the retail market comes back.

#2: Never screw over your partner- Self-explanatory.#3: Never be unreachable-if you want to deal, then answer your phone.#8:Never take anything for grained-due diligence, as mentioned before,

I think there should be a group of people like my self who post all the loans that that have closed with private lenders and post all the scam artists so that we will know the good ones from the bad ones.

Even if you self-manage that is a cost because it takes your time you could be doing other income producing activities.When I list properties for sellers I explain that most buyers do not self-manage which is true.So the buyers will include self-management when pricing.You never want to exclude management expenses.If you self-manage when buying GREAT but if you get in their and after trying decide you want to hire a manager then you have not accounted for that cost.It is one of the most single greatest mistakes I see investors make time and time again.You want it where if everything goes right you get an awesome deal but if things go wrong you can still have a good deal.VERSUSPeople talking themselves into good deals and when things go bad they now have a marginal to losing deal they can't get out of.You don't know what the seller will take.Be conservative and throw a low number out.You can always go up later.

Stay away from pure idiots and self centered high achievers, either can be difficult to argue with IMO.

While you must be careful about self dealings, you can arrange rents to flow through and pay a salary, benefits and expenses.....even a retirement plan or golden parachute.You can also support a N/P from the outside, loan money or assets to it, sell to it or rent peoperties to it, if there is no affiliation with the N/P that can be what ever is agreed to.While you can have the organization qualify as accepting contributions with tax deductions, it is not necessary to have the tax deduction, but it's worth the effort in the long run, I have used both.

You would typically offer a preferred rate, set to some value you're confident you can get and then an additional return the investor would get if the properties do well.

I would go to eLance.com, post a broad listing of what you "think" you want, and when the replies start pouring in, you can ask more questions at that point in time and essentially get yourself a free consultation from experts.Of course, "experts" is pretty subjective, but the good thing with eLance.com is that the people all have customer feedback, so if you are talking with someone who has great feedback, your confidence level in their advice can obviously go way up (and vice versa).

A S-corp can help with the self employment tax on fix and flips or other active businesses, but works out about the same as a pass-through LLC for rentals.

My limited self education so far, made me realize that for > 4+ units commercial mortgage is required.