I own my own business and even though a loan would only give me $50k to work with, I would be able to use my personal assets to supplement and not have the IRS cloud over my head.

Brian: have you checked to see if your county Housing Authority has a website.

., for me, it is unclear if this home by home or for a business with multiple assets.

I work with financial institutes, mortgage lenders, and privately held mortgage owners to liquidate their assets.

In many cases if an an asset is selling for that price there are probably some factors that will cause your expenses to be greater than 50%.

Surely there's a distressed asset that's worth $1M that needs a $500K solution today.

I will then distribute the asset which will count as ordinary income this year.The reason I am considering distribution is that I am precluded from personally being involved with rehab ( that would not be a passive activity) and If I get personally involved I can cut the cost of repair significantly.

If the market is glass of water, your asset value is the water.

I'd want to have a lot of knowledge and understanding of what I was getting into before handcuffing myself to an "asset" that could dominate my energies for a long time to come.

Investors always saw value in REIT to participate in ownership of assets they would not be able to own ordinarily, i.e. class A multifamily, industrial, commercial, retail, etc.