I have only worked with non-judicial short sale situations so if your state is the opposite, that would be the only way I could agree with your point.

Non-recourse loans will require 30% or more down, but are based soley on the property itself.

It's not a magic formula that works in every situation...in fact, sometimes your expenses are MORE than 50%.Take a couple minutes to list out your expected expenses (and their amounts):- Vacancy (talk to other investors in the immediate area and see what kind of vacancy rates they are seeing)- Rent Loss (how much do you plan to lose due to concessions and non-paying tenants?)

And does this include rent loss due to things other than vacancy -- for example, concessions or non-payment?

As far as it sounding too good to be true, one catch is that you must be self-employed or have a business with no full-time non-owner employees to be eligible for the plan.Once eligibility is established, you'll submit an application to a plan provider to get your Solo 401k documents created.

So my property reserves are primarily for an AC failure that would require full unit replacement since I'm in Phoenix and a property is pretty much uninhabitable with non-functioning AC for about 5-6 months of the year. 

I have even put in a dare with my coach...I want to be on the BP podcast one of these days...as the FIRST non-USA property investor, and share my experience.

Currently my two partners and I generally use as long of amortization as possible, which varies from 20 years for non-recourse and 25-30 for standard loans.

Why does only one property cash flow, and if the goal is to replace a salary, how do those non-cash flowing properties help meet that goal?

In our world, regardless of zoning, 1-4 units are "commercial" for financing purposes if they are non-owner occupied.