These things come in cycles and the market is pretty bloated in places.

I buy all my PCs at the Microsoft Store as I find their prices are competitive and they do not load the computers they sell with bloat ware (the "free" software that no one wants).

@Ray Hebert Right now, stick with tracking things on spreadsheets, but when you start scaling up perhaps start looking into software specific to real estate income & expense tracking like Kitt, which will help you with all your accounting, reporting and even budgeting renovations.Most accounting software will allow you to track your financials, but often they are bloated with stuff that isn't relevant.

Anything larger in multifamily is bloated.

I think the holy grail is an all-in-one solution, but there's a lot of companies in that space right now, and the software gets bloated and overly expensive.  

It varies state by state on what level a real estate broker/agent can help a seller with a short sale on the residential side.In some states brokers/agents simply submit a contract and attorneys for the parties do the rest.In some states brokers/agents can help with workout options but in other states they must hold a mortgage license.There is also Federal requirements and disclosures brokers/agents must use when listing a short sale.The government calls it "the short sale streamline process".I call it a bunch of red tape that isn't needed which creates more government oversight and bloat wasting our tax dollars.Depending on loan type if the property is FHA then they can only accept a certain amount off of appraisal.A few years back it was easier to massage the bpo using different strategies to get close to your purchase number.Today more banks are using agents with experience doing bpo's and also the banks have controls in place to almost eliminate any manipulation by investor purchasers on value.Another point is if your area is declining by 1 percent a month and it takes 3 months for an approval by the time you close you have lost 3% in value.How you approach a short sale and an acceptable number will depend on what you are doing with the property.Margins and hold times are different for assigning,flipping,and rentals.

S and P isn't everything.There are 2 other agencies as well.If all 3 downgraded I think it would be more severe.They were saying that other countries that have experienced the down grade really saw no significant consequences from it.The problem with companies in the U.S is the cost does not pencil in.Many of the larger companies have massive upcoming retirements to pay out.Meanwhile many of these other countries businesses are fairly new.They can get low cost cheap labor and export to the United States and get credits from our government to do it.Meanwhile companies that start up here get burdened with bloated government,red tape,no credits,very high wages compared with overseas companies.When they say our companies go overseas for production it is not a shock to me.I instead say why in the world would they make a product here??

What does paying taxes to our bloated gov-mint have to do with good conscience?

It would be nice if we didn't gift a bunch of bloated idiots tax dollars to allow them to be so choosy, but that is a different topic for a different thread and day.Giving a buyer a financing contingency in a contract is like extending them credit and the seller should have every right to do some homework on them.

Taxes are so high because the government is so big and bloated and spends so much and has for decades.