I personally like the convenience of letting someone else deal with everything, well worth the money to me.

What I am wondering is that it *sounds* to me like an owner who is wanting to exchange up can either put their physical property or the funds from the relinquished property into a 'temporary partnership'.

It became apparent to me that the buyer who offered 152k was either an idiot or thought I was idiot.

I'm about 7 days away from closing on my first real estate deal and the thought occurred to me that instead of wasting time (and closing costs) dealing with a bank for the initial loan, I could simply use myself as the source of "private money" for the entire purchase (~40k) for a home that I intend to rehab.The rehab is expected to take 3-4 weeks and I already have a reputable contractor with a written estimate in hand and the cost will be a ~25k additional (worst case) on top of that.  

I am sure it happened before but in my career in Real estate that was in my mind when the over bid and escalator became known to me.

David Greene's book Long distance investing was a great help to me.

The deal appears solid but their process is new to me.

When I went to see a real estate agent to look at some properties he mentioned to me the purchase+improvement mortgage which lenders now offer.

Just wasn't sure if it mattered where the payments to me were coming from...income is income. 

John De La Garza,Essentially, my friend needs to me to learn 3 and 5I should have clarified.. my goal is to be finical analyst recent college graduates with a passion for Real Estate and Finance.