The yard is extremely low maintenance (just river rock and a few palms).

This property was vandalized to the extreme - most of the home runs and all 240V wires were removed.

Also, I know that due diligence is extremely important in finding a deal that will be profitable.

That makes it sound like there is no more risk than any other investment... there is always a chance that someone will break their contract.Maybe it's more common with these deals because the original owner stays involved longer than with a traditional sale or flip.

Other markets, like mine, will commonly cash flow with no downpayment, but we didn't see any significant appreciation in values over the last 10 years (3-5% a year).

ALWAYS assume you will have a 90% 30 year mortgage, just so you can compare apples-to-apples...and to that point:Taking the other extreme: Imagine that you have a house fully paid off, so that your only expenses are taxes, insurance, repairs, and property management.

You can never 1031 exchange back into real estate because you no longer own real estate. 1031/TIC Investment - you can 1031 exchange into a tenant-in-common investment property (TIC property).

Our civic leaders have worked vigorously to make that happen and have been extremely successful in getting the right people involved in a very short amount of time.

Ordinarily, notwithstanding the common advice to start with a single family property, my preference is to acquire a fourplex, triplex, or duplex (in that order).

I've got a friend in the business, who doesn't really cut me any breaks, he knows he can "slip" my job if a bigger one comes up, and most important he doesn't have to charge me the FULL SLAB, as long as I use a very common granite!