I've had rentals for 5 years and this past year has been puzzling.

I can tell you know what you're talking about...can you answer one more piece to the puzzle?

For me this is the last piece of the puzzle before I feel comfortable taking the plunge.

It's in a great area, and i'm trying to get ALL the pieces of the puzzle together (mortgage, insurance, down payment, utility costs, emergency fund, profit, etc), then sit down and form a conclusion if it's a smart investment before any money is laid out.

Here is a case I ran into today and was puzzled by the course it took. * SFR in SF bay area, specifically in an area where housing price has been holding up quite well* at 12/09, house est. value was $1.1M, loan $470K, equity $730K.* NOD 5/7/09* NTS 9/21/09, starting bid $27K, sold to 3rd party for $190KCan some one help me to answer (or speculate), 1) Since the owner had a large equity amount, why didn't he short-sale it, say for $800k, and still could get $330K, vs loosing it all.

So i figured if it was good for him, it would be good for me if I could do it solo,too.What piece of the puzzle am I missing?

Honestly, I think we agree on this Bill given your original comment so it is puzzling to me that you continue to bring up stuff that isn't relevant to the original question and condescend to debate the matter.

Everytime I get that puzzled.

The fact that you are puzzled by this makes me think that no one explained this to you.

I find this puzzling to me.In this business, you need to be able to make be prepared to make $8 or $10K.