Between the taxes, poor building administration, heavily tenant-skewed laws, low influx of new residents, high supply and plenty of other avoidable and absurd issues, you will never have a piece of mind.

BUT we sold the place to an investor friend who did the repairs & the tenants still there paying on-time (we hold the note & she direct deposits) but dog is long gone.I avoid any flooring below 12mm but negligent surface damage is going to happen regardless of the product.

We've been buying more and more product in Chicagoland and prefer to avoid Cook County, when possible, but, if we find a good deal, we'll bid on it.You have three main factors that affect timelines for NPNs in judicial states: the courts, the foreclosing attorney, and the noteholder.

There are way to move properties into asset holding companies that will not trigger a due on sale that you may want to explore due as moving the properties into a trust.A transfer to an LLC will trigger the clause and should therefore be avoided, even though banks are hesitant to ever foreclose as long as the note is being paid.

It's not unusual to get 10-12% Cash-on-Cash returns in many cities across the US (just avoid the coasts!).

- How can I avoid tax?

The housing market in our city is extremely competitive right now....This is the first offer we have managed to get accepted and we somehow beat out 5 other offers so we don't want to back out of our current contract if we can avoid it. 

The only way to avoid ordinary income is to hold them as rentals.

Vacancy costs are what will kill me though, so my hope is to avoid this.

But if you avoided an investment property in order to get an FHA in CA later, you're essentially *not* investing and getting those returns just so you can make an 'investment' later that is going to lose you money too.