There were also a handful of loans to trusts made by WaMu and a few other extinct banks during the mid-2000's period of loose/cheap money.Title holding trusts, of the sort commonly used by real estate investors in my area, offer first level privacy for investor types and convenience of administration, but no real asset protection.

Start with a single focus and become an expert at that before trying to understand everything.I also think you should hold on to your wallet and get the basics down before you try and spend money on all sorts of bells and whistles...

I'm starting to wonder if it's worth the trouble/expense to maintain that much larger of a house (and a 2-story - 2 AC units) just to get $100-$200 more per month.

The thought comes to mind of encumbering both apt buildings presents a juicy fruit to the bank as they get to encumber all properties involved with some sort of blanket loan.

Many of the larger banks are putting resale restrictions on their deals, and the buyers also have to sign an affidavit at the closing table stating they don't have any deals pertaining to the property that aren't disclosed to the bank -- if you had a side deal, the buyer would be committing fraud.That's going to be the big hurdle...

I'm guessing this is some sort of quick and dirty estimating technique that could be performed on a pocket calculator.

Depending on all those factors, you may find that an 8% return is good or you may find that you'll need to provide a much larger return in order to account for the risk and time involved.Without knowing more about what the fund will be used for -- and what the financial projections and risk are -- it's impossible to know what a reasonable return for an equity investment would be.

We're planning to stay in RE, but will probably focus a little more on development and larger-scale projects.

Whats the strategy called (sort of speak) to have your tenants buy equity for you.

I have gotten local banks before on commercial deals that were smaller in size to agree to pay 8% to 10% in some cases.The larger deals that would be a much harder sell because they have to answer to the investors on the loan and the commission being too high gets push back because the investors on the loan are taking such a hug loss to move it.Usually the sellers have no money to make up the total commission so the bank makes a demand and you say no and then after awhile the bank gives in and pays.