Looking to increase my knowledge in real estate to for both personal and financial gain.

I just checked the Zestimate for our old house in Modesto (standard disclaimers about Zestimates apply...) - it's still barely more than half of what we paid for it in 2004, and less than half of what it appraised for in 2006...So, it's very possible to lose money in Northern CA if you buy at the wrong time, like we did.

Any new laws coming down about increasing property taxes?  

If the price drops, then the cap rate would increase and by your explanation would mean higher risk.  

I was just using a standard 30 year conventional mortgage to analyze the expenses but would like to find a way to analyze it with hard money.

30 yearsannual taxes - SAMEannual insurance - SAMEMonthly $1967.87 - this is really too big of a bill to cover, but not if I could supplement some funds from a renter of my current home.Current home costs me $480/month and that includes taxes and insurance - with increase to a 6%tax rate lets say it now costs me $600/monthI can get a reasonable $1700/month in rent for my current home.minus $600 for mortgage on current home = 1,100/month, leftover/cashflow/whatever you want to call it.New homes mortgage of 1967.87 - 1,100 (from current home rental savings) = 867.87/month out of our pocket. - this is a number that we would really love to work with each month.Scenario 1 minus Scenario 2 = a savings of 746.33/month (8,955.96/year)Now with this scenario, obviously we have the mortgage of new home offset by the rent of current home, but we don't have the money up front to do any renovations right away either.

Recently, I made the decision to really dive in and increase my real estate education.

To limit the cost of this you can raise your rate to absorb this 2.15 - 3.30% upfront fee that is normally financed into your loan but it will take significant rate increase to absorb this chunk.

It took time to build this team but after many calls, many poor responses, many non call backs, many "we can't help you", I was able to find people that wanted to be a team and work with me.I have purchased $1000's in US real estate material, searched the internet for private money, invest time to increase my knowledge in US real estate, been on many webinars (still do) and continue to read and listen to real estate and motivational CDs.  

There is no rule set in stone that real estate will always enjoy such a favored tax status.In fact since populism is increasing and most Americans don't receive these benefits, they are at risk more so than in the past.