Yes since you put it that way it does seem like bad business practices.

Practicing my number crunching, perhaps this will help:Purchase price: $120,000Cash in: $34,000Gross Rental Income: $1600/mo   $19,200/yrExpenses yearly (percentages off income):Vacancy @8%                 $1,536 Maintenance @5%             $960Management @8%         $1,536Mortgage,Tax,Ins           $9,600Total Exp                       $13,632 Cash Flow                            $5,568Net Operating Income = $19,200 - $13,632 + MortgageCash-on-Cash Return = Pre-Tax Cash Flow / $34,000Didn't know the specifics on some of those.

Ok, so maybe (maybe) we get away with the regulators breathing down our necks, we are subject to internal/external auditors reviewing the violation of our policies and procedures for disclosing information about a loan to a person not on the loan.

We don't do hold deposits as a matter of practice, for our own in-house processes. 

The information I am receiving from Bigger Pockets has been very practical, real world, and less hype. 

This is standard practice, sale by scare.A few years ago, the only property we've had with window units had something similar.

Will be incorporating this to our practice.

None of those are practical unless you rent out rooms but in the end they will not likely make for profitable rentals.

The land that is cheap is often so because it lies in an area with insanely high impact taxes (Can be up to $60k in MoCo) or in jurisdictions with very restrictive building regulations, or they may even restrict it as much that you can not build at all.

Short read but packed with some really useful and practical information.