I know, I'll actually contact a qualified CPA and a tax attorney to see how it applies to my particular situation, but I'm also just curious about this in general.Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, nor a CPA.My understanding is like this:Yes, the taxable loss can offset earned income, if you can be considered "active" in your investment.

I've been active in investing for about a year and a half now.

Some of the information that Califronia MLS offers is exclusive to MLS listings and can be very valuable to real estate investors.I'm a Licensed California Broker and could help an active Real Estate investor in Southern California market.

If ya want to slam people about REI, maybe you should be an active investor yourself, wouldn't you agree?

One who doesn't invest him/herself but is active in getting listings.

Are you suggesting I engage or develop a relationship with a buyer's agent on deals or to bring me deals s/he discovers or are you suggesting developing relationships with seller's agents to let you know when they have something for sale that might be of interest?

One is more active while the other causes you to wait for the world to come to you.

There is another thread active on this topic, so you might want to look there where I collected a number of BP threads together in one post:http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/40651-who-do-you-use-for-credit-and-background-checks-

If she does buck on that then sounds like she may be a "golddigger" and you don't want that.If no problems, then congrats on your engagement!!

I will also post one of them threads about mentoring, I had thought about it but.......I have found a couple of websites - one the of the 2 owner/brokers is an active REInvestor in the area and I sent some emails to the few I found that mentioned working with investors.:)