When I bought my first property 30 years ago (aB&B) we had friends over for dinner one night.

I had a friend in San Antonio who learned this the hard way.

How often do you use it personally or let friends/relatives stay? 

But it's difficult for me to just hand over money to someone I've never met, when I have so many friends (and have read so many stories here) who have been ripped off by contractors.How can I protect myself?

@Shuvrajit Mukherjee - You have to be able to scrape that data from some where pretty easy...a lot of that property specific info is public record.There is a website called chicago cityscape...I am decent friends with the founder....it is sourcing a ton of data that might help. 

Just my 2 cents, but given the location, I would assume other than a doctor with a young family or a group of 4 friends looking to live downtown. 

I have a similar situation where a Canadian investor friend and myself (a US citizen) are planning to partner up in Florida to flip properties.

Separately, smaller towns are very user friendly.

Quote from @Greg Miller: Quote from @Theresa Harris: BC is not very friendly to foreign buyers. 

There should be an automatic double-lifetime BP ban for the offender, as well as anyone who responds to the thread—and maybe their entire family and all friends.