You're not collecting the rent, but still have all the expenses (well, hopefully you don't have to evict yourself, I wouldn't make any bets about your friends)You will never be able to get a loan in an entity without a personal guarantee.

Please be careful when you're buying properties on line or from seminars.

Maybe look for a discount agent who will place it on line and handle disclosures but not be required to do any showings or negoitiating.

Getting investor loans done with conventional lenders is tough and will get tougher.Local indy banks as you say are a great alternative. they are called portfolio lenders and they can help because they do not sell their loans to Freddie and Fannie.These small banks and credit unions don't work with brokers so brokers are not your best bet here.If you go to my blog (in my sig) there's a link there to my Portfolio Loan Blueprint that will help.

I seriously doubt with every bone in my body we need to be stocking up on guns, ammo, food, safes...etc.It's almost laughableI'll bet they thought it was laughable just before every other catastrophe in history.

In the next couple of years when all the adjustable rate mortgages start to come on line we are going to be facing this hole problem all over again.

Your best bet, if you can find a lender, is to do a straightforward refi and pay your friend off as part of that transaction.

I bet that second would take $1500, and the first would take a whole lot less than $700k.

Everything you need is right online.

So if it takes about 3-4 months to foreclose on someone, I would expect to see the market to be flush with foreclosures starting 2nd quarter 09 and the housing market bottoming out starting in 3rd quarter 09 since their should be less foreclosures coming on line to depress the market with.Therefore, my objective between now and then is to accumulate properties now for cash flow and position myself to be able to accumulate more property in late 09.