The spirit of doing it the other way, where lender causes the DIL, can be viewed as unfair, forcing the borrower to surrender their property circumventing foreclosure.  

Any firm decision is far from made on my end as I'm keeping an open mind and will walk away from the idea of investing in this city if the conditions force me to.I am going to Minneapolis this summer to spend a week scouring potential properties (with an open mind) and may choose to just stick to the Los Angeles market.To the savvy investors in this forum:Has anyone invested in this zip code area and if not does anyone have any knowledge about this area of Minneapolis?

@David McEwanI would secure financing prior to shopping, however just ran into a deal where I was 'Preapproved" for financing, signed a contract & was sidelined due to a garage apartment & forced to seek cash from another source.

My solution was to force the police to enforce my rights as the new homeowner.

Think about it, if the property was easy to sell, the seller would sell it to a conventional buyer who would pay the seller cash.Sellers generally get market value at today's prices and relief from paying a mortgage on a vacant property.Although the lease payments may exceed market rent, the buyer is building a down payment and banking that the property will appreciate beyond the agreed upon purchase price.Buyers generally make a small down payment, with little or no qualifying, making a lease purchase an attractive way to ease into the benefits of home ownership.Buyers also receive a forced savings plan since part of the lease payment is credited toward the purchase price at the end of the lease option agreement.If the buyer defaults, sellers do not refund any portion of the lease payments nor the option money and may retain the right to sue for specific performance.

Of course, suggestions will be met with open arms!

If you want to buy a 20 unit building in the West Village it's going to cost an arm and a leg because that neighborhood is perennially popular.

There's advantages and disadvantages, but sometimes your local market kind of forces you to invest out of state - or in my case, out of country :)As others have mentioned, forming a good team is absolutely critical.

Having equity is always awesome, but not as vital to me in looking at a 2-4 unit property.Can you force equity into the property?  

The terms will not be quite as good - slightly higher interest, balloons, ARMs, no 30 year fixed, etc.