Appreciation is only a THEORY until a person SELLS, be it gain or loss. 

I have a salt water hot tub at my personal home.

I personally know of top 1% Airbnb homeowners that are flushed.

In high-cost markets like Chicago, that can be tough to meet.If you're looking at a duplex, the self-sufficiency test doesn’t apply, so you’d just need to qualify based on your personal income and the rental income your lender allows.If your current lender isn’t familiar with making FHA work in your situation, it might be worth getting a second opinion from someone experienced with FHA multi-unit financing.

Based on your numbers, and assuming you have a credit score high enough and have never filed for BK, you shouldn't have an issue getting approved for an HML to buy/rehab the property that I would estimate at about $370k-$375k (which includes 100% of the rehab costs).

It was a personal referral, received a credit at closing for renovations as well How did you finance this deal?

Any insights or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!

I would speak to lawyer and let them review the agreement maybe can do a class action and sue personally the managers if fraud.

So, things change a bit.If it is his personal home, there are more restrictions.For an investment property, if you take over his financing, read through the deed of trust (mortgage) and see how they handle transfer of ownership.

I recently read a book that mentioned there being a lot of power and benefits of a personal corporation but I'm curious as to when a corporation is actually beneficial over the latter.