My duplex - built 1989, 2,060 sf, 2 bed/bath, 1 year old roof, value if I subdivide (county already approved) and sell each separately $150k each ($300k total)Investor duplex - built 1995, 2,300 sf, 2 bed/bath, 5 year old roof, value around $310kThe investors initial request was for an equal trade and they would pay realtor fees, which I replied wouldn't be equal due to buying/selling costs (recording fees, title insurance, closing fee, survey, inspections, loan fees, 1031 fees, accountant fees, repairs), taxes would increase due to new sale price, I'd trade a 3.75% mortgage for a higher one, and I'm on the 10th year of a 30 year loan so resetting that to a new loan would restart amortization and pay more towards interest.

While shopping for home insurance, I kept receiving higher premium quotes.

I have also filed a claim against his insurance company with hope of getting at least our monies from the contract back.    

The bottom line is this: Concealment is not asset protection, proper (time consuming and expensive, I know) management, and good, prudent, practices (ditto), WHICH ARE ADHERED TO, and insurance (expensive), are needed for asset protection.

And you know who sells SubTo insurance?

It's all about risk in the event of a lawsuit, which can also usually be covered by insurance.- If you decide to have an LLC for each property, creating a Management LLC that all the other LLCs "hire" to run their books, will allow you to only require a bank accont for the Management LLC.2) You may not be able to do a Trust.

There's a big swing here in insurance and tax calculations I see and getting those numbers accurate are critical for your ability to not miss on good deals

You want this to be your backup plan if things take longer than anticipated, you do not want to dip into personal credit cards so i would use a heloc to help with down payment but try to keep a nice available balance on a heloc as your insurance policy. 

Sometimes they forget to tell you that many tenants in Detroit don't pay (depending on the property manager skill and the type of tenant) - but taxes are very high in the city and so is insurance. 

If you are setting aside funds for capex, taxes, insurance, or other expenses that don't occur monthly, transfer those funds to Savings each month and hold them there until it's time to spend them.