If it says any of the following; corporate-owned, as-is, certified funds for earnest money deposit, cash only/proof of funds, must do own termite inspection, no contingencies, etc. then the chances are good it's an REO.

They wanted me to buy paint so they could repaint for their deposit.

In Mass it's actually a law that you cannot accept more than 33% of the contract as a deposit if you're a home improvement contractor.Good call with the required W-9 and the insurance certificates before they start any physical work.

On my own credits, I qualify for $260,000 loan at 5%APR and 25% down payment.I have a private investor lined out with $70,000 for the down payment if needed, but the Mortgage Broker told me my income-to-debt ratio would be to great if I included the $70,000 in my pre-qualification.His advice was to have the private lender deposit the $70,000 into my account for 60 days to season it, then there would be no questions asked.How would I structure the $70k with the private lender and keep the payments off my debt, and cover the PV legally?

But I will definitely review leases and tenant screenings, and make a request for any potential deposits.

What you do there is once a week, or twice a month, or whatever, you write yourself a check from the company bank account to you,the company employee, and if you don't have the funds in the business bank account to cover that check, then you stick it in a drawer, and you cash it or deposit it to your personal account when your business account does have the funds available.You can set your 'salary' as low as minimum wage, and then just give yourself 'performance bonus' checks quarterly, again, with the appropriate payroll taxes applied, for any overages over your 'wage.'

For the most part it will be just like buying any other house, except the bank wont make repairs, they will want you to sign an extensive addendum holding them harmless from the property after the sale, and to close on time or pay a per-diam penalty.They hate having a contracted deal all apart, so they like strong offers (less contingecies) with high deposits.

Yesterday I read that they will break ground on a 200-300 unit high end apartment complex in GVR, and Vegas is slotted for 3000 apartment units to be built in 2014.

It's easier than getting 100 cashiers checks of various denominations and then returning them all when you don't use them.Re-depositing cash and official checks is about the same effort IMO; but if you lose an official check made out to the sheriff's dept whoever finds it isn't getting cash ...

If so, how's it different from a security deposit?