Best approach is to not invest in properties that do not have separately metered utilities.

Tip #3Network, network, network This tip will get you incredibly far.

As far as the home upsize or downsize process, there are innovators such as Dorrmat that is now providing ways to make the home buying process incredibly easy.

I've just never been in a big rush to lose money so that approach doesn't appeal to me personally. if you want to rent, and use your capital to buy a cash flow positive property, then that's not such a bad idea ;) 

From a viewpoint of maintaining W2 income to qualify for traditional financing I can understand it however when the ball is officially rolling and you have a fair amount of capital in your possession what has prevented you from taking the leap into a more full time and active approach to your investment dealings?

The daisy chain approach almost always ends up in a tremendous amount of your time being wasted, and the deal falling apart. 6.

If this is a repeated behaviour, you need to take a different approach. 

Its simply a mechanism for allocating property distributions and tax attributes in a manner other than a simple pro rata approach.

A great buyers agent will be able to help you fine tune your strategy, highlight market trends, knows where and what to look for, hook you up with the best lenders, inspectors, contractors, etc, get you the full background on a property and the sellers, knows how a particular property compares to other deals and what a great deal looks like, identify untypical risks and knows what to look for before you waste time and money on an offer & homeinspection just to cancel the deal later, get the lowest possible offer accepted, oversee the transaction and handle all the paperwork, including title work and appraisal, knows how to approach a short sale differently from a REO, negotiate inspections and repairs successfully and help you make more money, safes you time and lower your risk every step of the way.Sounds like you signed with someone who provides value by knowing lockbox numbers?

My current utilization is about 10% with a credit limit approaching $250k .