I'm not sure with conventional financing but with commercial or private financing you can buy as many at a time as your bank/lender will allow you.

Finding private lenders and hard money lenders5.

You can bet that all the sovereign wealth funds that are making investments in these companies are making a return.

The appraisal and any work done would help substaniate the value.My thought here is that if you actually have a friend, family member, or private investor give you funds which turn into a lien..great.

Now the way people throw around the world billion, $50 billion sounds like milk money.I bet with the inflation our country is going to go through after this bailout, you will actually need close to that for milk.

I have a copy of the bill for you at: www.BillionDollarBailout.com/TARP I say keep the Federal Government away from troubled assets and let market forces in the private sector manage the assets.

You're not collecting the rent, but still have all the expenses (well, hopefully you don't have to evict yourself, I wouldn't make any bets about your friends)You will never be able to get a loan in an entity without a personal guarantee.

Look for methods of finding private money lenders.It sounds like you haven't read enough real estate investing books yet.

Now, I am raising private money so I can hold the properties that do not sell within 6 months and just do owner financing with them until the credit crunch loosens and buyers can cash me out.

Getting investor loans done with conventional lenders is tough and will get tougher.Local indy banks as you say are a great alternative. they are called portfolio lenders and they can help because they do not sell their loans to Freddie and Fannie.These small banks and credit unions don't work with brokers so brokers are not your best bet here.If you go to my blog (in my sig) there's a link there to my Portfolio Loan Blueprint that will help.