With allowing the owners to recover, the time commitment from purchasers becomes excessive driving off some potential buyers which results in less than top price. 

They will share in income and future expenses (if any arises in excess of what we have in reserves), based on their equity.

I will be writing a forum post on this today also.One thing to then consider in a cooling/normalizing market (by the time you subdivide and build the market could be hot again but presume normalized but plan for 5% reduction) is the general appetite of smaller family homes is greater than larger homes. meaning more buyers for more affordable housing that the no# of buyers for larger and more expensive homes.

Excess mail in the mailbox.

How about offering them help with cleaning up their yard and getting excess junk hauled away which can definitely increase the value your property in a buyers eye?

Overall, need the property to cashflow positive and pay for itself.TerryI will let the CPA's of BP chime in but i think part of the new tax law was no write off on helocs in excess of basis..

Do you want to get to x number of doors so you can retire or are you looking to park some excess cash in an asset you can control? 

In my market, there is little local appetite to buy full priced rented single family houses. 

Finally,  you could just do a straight finance deal and have the seller hold a second or silent JV partner with you.Again,  your seller's appetite for this will dictate your approach. 

But Brexit has somewhat reduced my appetite to continue building that business!