He took my tools--channel locks and pliers, and managed to get the box open.

To ensure you don't get locked in the contract make sure you have an out clause of some kind.

Do you lock into hard assets like RE now and hopefully ride that wave of inflation?

While high inflation does tend to drive up the values of hard assets, like real estate, it also drives up interest rates"I'm locking in a rate under 5% (actually much lower due to my Yen loan).

My property was taken out of my house when they changed the locks.

I also agree that getting the agent on board is a better idea for exactly the same reasons he listed.This reminds me of something one of my commercial mentors said before, "Sometimes they [agents] can be the key, and other times they can be the lock."

A theoretically stronger position to theoretically guarantee the sale later on would be a land contract as that (at least where I'm at) is more of an owner financing proposition - so theoretically they buyer is more "locked in" to the property.

At some point thereafter, if the tenants don't leave, all their stuff along with the tenants themselves is thrown out of the house and the landlord changes the locks.

Seems fun until you start to think about the ankle locks and the harness coming unlocked mid flight.

I could lock up a lot more deals in my LLC and transfer them internally to the client without blowing the deal with the asset manager.