I can tell from what many bloggers state that I would not consider the investment under any circumstances, even if I had no money in the project.Let me give you an example of what I feel is a good risk-workload vs. reward investment.

A bank REO guy does this every day with people who have hundreds of millions to invest in SFRs.In RE investing, you are looking for the magic triad of circumstances:1) Motivated seller - NEEDS to sell ASAP2) Distressed property - will not sell on retail market until it's repaired3) High equity - this gives them the ability to negotiate on price down to where you MUST be if this is a business and not a charity ;-)If all three of those do not exist, the deal could be elusive and you could waste a huge amount of time chasing it.Oh, and the house MUST NOT BE LISTED.

I do have good credit just bad debt to income ratio at the moment due to above circumstances.

Never buy with a quit claim deed in such circumstances.

Yes in some circumstances you can mitigate risk but you certainly can't completely eliminate it. 

Being the first isn't impossible, but more difficult.Secondly, the ability to flip by your lack of management under the circumstances means the property should be in fairly good condition, no real rehab work involved, and paint and market types.However, on that point, if you were to contract with a general contractor for the rehab work, the concern in that part of the flip is taken care of......but it needs to show the ability to profit too.

I'm totally unsure of which circumstances would necessarily trigger a gift tax when deeding directly to a beneficiary.

So with being armed with all of this, my question is; If we do our due diligence and buy right, what are some unforeseen ways that could cause us to lose money and potentially fail on our first deal?

But outside of those special circumstances - I wish them luck, waive their application fee, and move on.

I have the same question, but different circumstances.