Please provide useful advice on locating, assessing, and negotiating private money lending deals, especially from seasoned professionals.

Thank you for your thoughts:@John Clark : This is a Florida Condo where I am not under special assessments currently and the market has moved, creating a $50k to $70k shift in price and appraisal value if I move on to a new buyer.

I estimate it by taking the rate from the previous years estimate (total taxes paid/assessed value) and multiple the rate by the new value—which is going to be the purchase price.

I haven't noticed any services that handle appealing property tax assessments in the Bay Area here.

This document can help assess the financial performance of an asset. 

What tool/website should I use to do a comprehensive background check?

How do you assess the risk when using creative financing techniques in PML?

Look at the Florida condo market to learn how the market can be affected by special assessments, weather-related disasters, insurance availability, as well as newly promulgated laws/regulations.

One month later, lawyer for HOA wrote me a letter saying they made a mistake in computing the special assessments and $62K more is owed.

Our experience in assessing renovation costs and market conditions gave us the confidence to negotiate a deal that promised a solid return on investment.