If so, they can't offer 1/2 a month of rent to other agents, so no point in putting it on the MLS.Several of our Detroit market competitors play the same game on cheap owners.

They also offer all commercial real estate, not just multifamily.  

Or offer a mix, like x% interest + 30% equity ownership.

Before I put a offer in I looked to see if there were any open permits, there were none.

Zillow's API is no longer offered (or they make it extremely hard to access these days - have had no luck finding an updated link/page for it), Redfin has broad-stroke CSVs you can download that only give 5-10 fields of info and not often at the metro area, you can't legally create a tool to crawl these websites...I'm looking for 1 (or a handful of sources) to pull together basic metrics at the metro/city level for US real estate.

I told them I didn't want to do the consortium deal, so they offered me another one where I would need to pay a 30k USD down payment and have an EIGHT PERCENT INTEREST RATE.

Andrea,My corporate office in in Chicago and some of the 2-4 units right now offer a good price point and cash flow. 

i am figure out my lawyer as we speak

My $5000 cabinets turned into $3000-3500 cabinets doing this.With that said, offer the best pricing you can is extremely important.

I like starting in the Midwest because it's affordable and offers good cash flow.