It's not just state law; city ordnances play a huge role.

The housing market will turn around only when first time buyers can afford to move into housing, whether "afford" is persieved or real also plays into account the turn around in an unknown way.That is the basic crux of the housing market.

Unless you have extensive knowledge and connections with rehabbing, financing, market analysis, and just general real estate investing, I think you are setting yourself up for failure trying to break in to the downtown renovation game right now.For a beginning investor, I would rather you start out with something safe that has a strong possibility of bringing you a quick return rather than play the dice and hope it hits in time, and that advice has nothing to do with being my competition.

However, I do know that one disadvantage with these properties is that they are not as easy to sell as is the single family property.That's the second issue.That being said, any advice as to what to do with either the first or the second issue or, ideally, with both will be greatly appreciated?

They decided the market was TOO HOT when those kind of people were "playing" in it and sold out.2.

Just like being in a band, don't try to play all instruments.

Ideally, I would like to outright sell the property since I would recover all the cash and I can move on to my next deal, but the market is somewhat slow here.

In every lease option I've heard explained, including HuntMan1, the option price is always above market because the seller had no equity to play with and you want to make money when the leaser exercises their option.What I mean by "they are going to be renting at an amount that covers 95% of the mortgage" is that because you're assuming the mortgage "Subject to" and the seller has no, or very little, equity (the example HuntMan1 gave was 5%), you have to set the rent as at least the mortgage payment that you're now making, which is 95% LTV on the house.

He is comfortable right where he is right now - we have a house, we have good paychecks, he works at oil wells (Schlumberger) and he loves being outdoors (play in the mud type thing), he loves his co-workers, he has his wine hobby (he makes wine and recently started making beer), we are all healthy and, except for a not so good credit, we have no problems.

Smart investors won't make an offer with just any agent--they want their offer presented by the listing agent to have an edge over this unfair play.