Where you clearly went wrong is you bought a home for $390k and after renovating it its worth $445k or best offer of $380k.Also realize you probably also signed a personal guarantee so any amounts owed they can come after you for, and if you have equity in your primary residence they could potentially foreclose on that (depending on what state it is).

A quit claim deed just means you are transferring ownership but making ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES about the title to the property.

However, there's obviously no guarantee in what they'll find... so - how do folks mitigate the risk of the 2k-5k loss when looking to purchase a new property for a plan like this?

If you have a personal guarantee on the property then an LLC really does not provide much protection.

As @Shawn Mcenteer said, rent increases in NNJ are almost a guarantee in the NYC suburbs (~45min from Manhattan). 

Depending on which article you read, there is between $26B and $30B under construction.In ConclusionWhile nothing is guaranteed, the combination of population growth and limited land for expansion virtually assures that prices and rents will continue to increase.Thanks for reading my post.

It's no guarantee but it's a good place to start.

The best strategy in Mexico is holding short-term rentals and it's often even better than in the US because of the high cash flows and the almost guaranteed lack of regulations, which is a huge problem in the Us another developed countries.

There's a lot of value (even if a higher interest rate) to us finding a simple deal like this...We have great credit and solid income - I would think, for the right rate, there would be lenders out there jumping at the chance for these guaranteed returns - we'd even consider putting up the equity of the Texas home (and obviously the land itself) to secure some portion/all of the loan?

So you'll have to show that you've made the payments on time for 12 full months (cancelled checks or bank statements to evidence debits on your bank statement to show payment).The 12 months of payment documentation will be required from the underwriter as a condition almost guaranteed 99.999%.Keep in mind what I am talking about here is if you pay an underlying mortgage that you're not obligated on and after the 12 month of payment you are "no longer," subject to the 50% LTV restriction with conventional financing.