I've been told that one of the difficulties in dealing with short sales is that often the sellers don't know, or don't want to know, that they have to pony up the difference in the sale price and the mortgage price so when they find that out at closing they often end up walking away and just letting their property get foreclosed on.

A near bankruptcy left me with difficulties raising credit and I worry about closing on a rehab and not having the capital to complete the project. 

Perhaps this is a bit naive, but are there any legal or financing concerns with using a private loan from friends/family for the down payment of an investment property (SEC regulations, underwriting difficulties, etc.)? 

@John Woodrich What is the process and how difficult is it to convert a single family to a duplex in Minneapolis?

I know I have been pretty conservative with my purchase number especially for the first project, but being a cash buyer with a decent allowable access to fast cash I didn't think finding a property would be this difficult. I

And will I run into difficulty financing these properties, and closing close together?

How difficult is the process?

Most feel that CA is going to trend lower this time but there is still pretty high demand despite the slowdown and difficulties, question is will that stay.Bottom line, if you do not have to do something immediately I'd wait 3-6 months and see where this ends up.

Word of mouth is powerful.Boston is a tough market for cash flow and with higher rates it's very difficult. I

Aaron Phillips let me preface this by saying that I am also very much a newbie, but the formula you are using doesn't seem right.ARV = after repair valueWhich is essentially an estimate for what the price will be at market value after repairs are madeSince you are buying a distressed property that is currently worth much less than the average value for a similar house in the area, the repairs the rehabber is going to make will ideally bring the value of the house up to the ARV.The formula you want to use is:ARV x 70% - [repair cost] - [your fee] = your offer priceThe difficulties you will have as a newbie is correctly identifying the ARV and the repair costs, since you have no real experience figuring those out.