Essentially, my plan is to learn, network, tighten up my credit, raise capital, and pull the trigger within the next year (my original plan was within 9 months, but that would mean purchasing in December...I'm afraid it will be more difficult to flip a house in this area during the winter and I want to minimize holding cost as much as practical...thoughts on that are appreciated).That said, I'm a clean slate ready to absorb all the knowledge and wisdom from others in the BP community.

The reason I got notified of your comment because I have keyword alert setup and because I'm following this forum post (these are useful tools to utilize, look into that if you haven't already). 

I'm also open to books or relative tools that are important for this industry.Julio

It is a simple 2 minutes or less process for each lock. you insert the working key, then a tool, and do a couple of turns in a certain sequence, put the new key in and turn it and you are now re-keyed.

There is essentially no difference in the two plans you laid out.Plan A:  Each of you files two Schedule Cs for half of everything orPlan B: One of you claims all of the income and expenses and then "hires" the other as a subcontractor.  

Crystal...what a great tool.  

A seller who wouldn't as much as name a price essentially does not warrant much attention. 

Essentially a longterm 'lot flip' based on the growth of the area or a neighborhood.2) Buying to build.

In Todays realestate marketplace in the area of realestate finance there is some resemblance as to how to create wealth quickly as it was when I first entered the business over 25 years ago,in those days there was no seasoning of title,a very powerful tool,for my younger investors they may not know what no seasoning of title mean,no seasoning of title simply lets you buy lets say a property that you bought for $25,000 ,but the appraised price was $50,000 and this was a property where there was no rehab necessary,in those days I could buy the property for $25,000 on Monday and sell it on Friday for $40,000,oh by the way i almost forgot to tell you i bought and sold  25 properties in 4 mo. only using $500,those were the good old days well this scenario is creeping back into the marketplace,this brings me to Todays lesson is based on using 4mo.seasoning of title and 100% financing to move your realestate empire forward,here's how,john doe is a pretty ambitious guy ,he doesn't have a lot of liquidity but he has some ,he finds 4 properties that cost $50,000 that each of them needs $25,000 in rehab,the appraise value of each of the properties after they are finished is $150,000,john fortunately is able to find 2 lenders that will allow him to do 2 rehabs at 100% financing,so john is able to get the financing for all 4 properties and now he has $600,000 in value and $300,000 in mtgs,john has 2 options he can either sell all 4 properties or hold them,john is able to find a financing source that will give him a 7% rate on a 10 year call with a 30 year amt,and the lender will allow him to cash out at 70% of the appraised value,so john decides he want to keep the properties so he decide to refinance ,his new mtg pymt is $1663,lets say taxesand insrance hypotheticaly speaking is $350,per property, it may be a little higher,so his total mo outlay 3063,on a $150,000 home based on where you are located,1300 mo should be a fair #,it could be higher,so your total gross rents are $5200-3063=$2137,oh we almost forgot what was johns cash out when he refinanced (600,000x70%=420,000-$300,000,this would equal $$120,000-estimated closing =$30,000=$90,000,lets see what are really happened,$90,000 profit,$2137 monthly cashflow,minimal out of pocket,being that this is based on 100% financing ,there will be some out of pocket costs along the way but they can all be recouped back,so the investors true out of pocket costs would be 0 because he was able to recoupe his out of pocket from the cash out refi ,so tell me what is the real rate of return on investment if your end result is that you have 0 costs of your own money in the deal,the last thing I want to mention is that some people who read this may not have any money , but have valuable homeimprovement expierence,another may have the credit but no money,the other may have money but no creditand yet another mayknow where all the smoking deals that would make the #s work ,I bring this up because I read a post of 2 people coming together to bring the resources that the other lacked,im sure the same thing can happen in this instance.

Essentially, government made all businesses double rates, and they are ignoring contacts.