What occurs is the seller acts as the bank and sells the property to you, but at closing you just pay her your down payment and the rest of the proceeds she takes back as a loan that you owe her for.

An alternate approach would be for you to take additional "back-end" upside that occurs as profits are generated or as your properties appreciate in value (and you monetize that appreciation).

(Note the Depreciation Recapture occurs all in the year of title transfer and is not spread).With some smart planning and a really good understanding of future income sources and amounts, you can possibly push the capital gains down to $0 since there is a 0% tax bracket available when all income sources are down below certain dollar amounts.Interest Income is taxed separately outside of the gain, but would be included for purposes of calculating total income (in order to get that gain down into the 0% bracket)

Where equity exists, the thought occurred to me that a HELOC against each property could be beneficial to lessen the impact of paying unplanned costs.Thoughts?

Because they didn't or forgot to, the county removed the exemptions for that year and thus we, the new owners, paid thousands more than we should have.The lesson for me was to make sure someone is checking on this when the closing for the house occurred. 

The first pillar is avoiding unnecessary and risky activities (don't drink and drive, insurance generally won’t cover your poor decisions) and take good care of your investments - these simple steps will help you prevent lawsuits before they even occur.

I knew that one of my former neighbors had a fake camera installed because I overheard him explaining to a police officer why he didn't have any recording of the crime that had just occurred. 

I am indeed in NC, and the criminal violations were also occurring in NC. 

There are few restrictions on new development, construction is faster, occurs year round and when rents and occupancies began to peak and easy credit is available, it’s a developer free for all.  

The first pillar is avoiding unnecessary and risky activities (don't drink and drive, insurance generally won’t cover your poor decisions) and take good care of your investments - these simple steps will help you prevent lawsuits before they even occur.