Walk away from our expert-led 8-week virtual summit series with the confidence to tackle the challenges and seize the opportunities that 2025 has in store.In signature BiggerPockets fashion this is meant to give you actionable, educational, anti-guru, data driven insights for how to start or continue your investing journey in 2025.

Instead of throwing your deal out to a bunch of strangers on the internet, I recommend you do your research to find a local expert with 20+ ACTIVE years in real estate in your market.

Dumb Debt also means that the owner takes on recourse debt and personally guarantees it instead of non-recourse debt or other people’s debt (OPD) or cross collateralizes it with highly appreciated assets with low debt to value ratios.

Remember, the notion of amassing wealth without investing is a dangerous myth perpetuated by self-proclaimed experts.

Note that active income isn't the same thing as non-passive income, it's lower bar that just requires that it's a business activity that isn't just entirely passive. 

Looking ahead, once you secure a tenant, perhaps this is something that should be explored to make the next lease up easier.Also, @Caria Mitchell raised an interesting point in saying: We are experiencing a shortage of qualified applicants, I’ve noticed non-conventional applicants vs qualified applicants that don’t have a voucher or some form of subsidy. 

To maximize the number of transactions you’re involved in you will need to:Be Top of Mind when they think about moving - which requires consistent reminders.Be seen as an Expert – which requires a consistent message and Evidence of Success storiesGain their Trust – which requires communicating integritySo, start out by listing everyone you know in an Excel spreadsheet.

Investing in a short-term rental property as non-local owners can certainly bring tax advantages, but achieving material participation requires careful planning and documentation.

With a multi-family property, it is very unlikely that all of your units become vacant or non-paying at the same time.

See the chart from Fair Isaac Company (FICO) below: FICO Score Pct of Population Default Probability 800 or more 13.00% 1.00% 750-799 27.00% 1.00% 700-749 18.00% 4.40% 650-699 15.00% 8.90% 600-649 12.00% 15.80% 550-599 8.00% 22.50% 500-549 5.00% 28.40% Less than 499 2.00% 41.00% Source: Fair Isaac CompanyAccording to this chart, investors should use corresponding vacancy+tenant-nonperformance factors of approximately 5% for Class A rentals, 10% for Class B and 20% for Class C.To address Class C payment challenges, many industry "experts" are now selling programs to newbie investors about how Section 8 tenants are the cure.