I have thought about making a pre-application form asking for fewer details, but haven't had the time.

@Windie Gaytan -You are always better off mailing to fewer people but mailing to them consistently.

The problem is, the numbers aspect is just about where my knowledge ends -- if only RE investing were done on a spreadsheet and a telephone.It's pretty obvious that BP offers a very extensive resource, so I've taken the time to read all of the "newbie" articles, listen to each of the podcasts, and generally consumer about 90% of the information that you have on this site geared toward starting out, marketing, etc.

Same assumptions as above, the $80K loan payment of $480 consumes almost all of the $500 projected (back of the napkin using 50% rule) net cash flow prior to debt service.

I understand that a lot of investors don't want to deal with short sales due to the time & hassle involved. I know that banks take a long time to respond. That said, what else in the process causes a significan...

It takes much longer to close deals, there are usually much fewer deals, but the deals are bigger.

If you can get a solid (good) manager on those properties, you will have substantially better returns and fewer feadaches.

One time consuming chore is doing the payroll.

A red flag goes up if there is a complaint where money is pooled with multiple investors and the unsophisticated public is possibly being taken advantage of, they will take notice.Yeah I feel that for the most part the SEC stuff, and most consumer protection legislation, is more to allow attorneys to churn big fees since you basically have to do it in those situations.I guess what you are saying is what I was getting at where offering a single person a lien on a property in exchange for loan would not really be an SEC red flag if nobody complained about it.

And a vacancy in that area is a nightmare...we lost all the copper pipes in one house last year while it was vacant, and it takes a *lot* of screening to get a decent tenant.We've had far fewer problems with our FL condos, they're all very nice units in good areas but a tenant's circumstances can change in an instant, as all of ours could, and you just never know.