Most landlords I speak with regarding Section 8 only take those tenants where the tenant-paid portion is so small that the landlord is willing to forego collecting it; their expectation is that it will be unpaid at some point, so if it is a negligible amount they just don't worry.

I've heard a few instances of it happening, but I also hear that the bank needs to bid-in at the amount owed in order to collect PMI or turn it over to freddie/fannie/HUD.

I collect their email when they move in and i find they are more comfortable communicating via email.

The cost is built in somewhere to what they are doing.We get landlords offering free rent here for 1 year.The rent isn't free on commercial as they then have year 2 at a higher than normal rate to recover some of the lost rent and then built in escalations that are higher and more frequent than normal.Never get sucked in by a gimmick.I tell all my clients to be slow and methodical in doing a deal to avoid "knee jerk" reactions.It takes a long time to make money and a small amount of time to lose it.You also have to watch out for if they are in pre-foreclosure or not.They could be trying to collect an upfront payment with free rent and then walk.

How do you expect to collect your wholesaling fee from a non-cash buyer?

If when you factor every thing in if it really costs less than $100 and the amount of time it takes you to do this and collect your money each month, do the accounting and taxes then what the heck go for it.

Your tenants won't be housebroken, collections will be difficult, and you're likely not going to change the demographics of an entire city region just by picking up a few junky properties.Look for stronger markets if you want to make money with good hardworking tenants who pay on time and respect the units.You're asking for trouble going into very low income areas.

Before you fire the agent (which you should), I would ask him/her to provide you the sale data on the properties you previously wanted to make offers on.

They list:Annual Rent 10,200HOA Fees 0 0County Taxes 839Management Fees 600Annual Insurance 450Annual Cash Flow 8,311Management fees are understated. 10% of collected rents is more typical, which would be $1020 a year.

Insist that the site visit and data analysis portions of teh Phase I be done by an "environmental professional" as defined in EPA All Appropriate inquiries regulation and the ASTM E1527 standard.