Maybe you should hire your VAs to create and maintain a system that creates a relationship with these Agents.

A single member LLC is usually eaisly defeated as most owners can't see themselves making out a minutes book authroizing themselves to go buy materials or make an offer on a property, but a well maintained entity would require these efforts as evidence that the LLC was actually a seperate entity from the owner/member.The more you treat your entity as a seperate being the better off you'll be in having it viewed that way.

But I think you will enjoy some of the soft benefits of having a retail and rental operation combined: depreciation, other tax benefits, economies of scale in remodeling, multiple exit strategies, volume to maintain agent relationships, etc.

It's sort of a "keep your enemies closer" thing...I have always worked to ensure that the HOA does not become one of those HOAs you read about in the paper...telling people that their house is the wrong shade of white or that their grass is a sixteenth of an inch too high.But, I do think HOAs serve some purpose with respect to maintaining aesthetics.

Typically they would at least maintain the building and common areas.

The number one issue that I see for new investors, like myself, is the ability to setup/run a real estate investment business on a part time basis while still maintaining a full time job.The question I have for everyone is...how do you do it?

Blue unemployment on left axis, and red 1995 indexed Silicon Valley home prices on right:If you look back to when we were leading up to the dot-com crash, you'll see that Silicon Valley maintained unemployment below 4% for almost an entire 5 years between 1996 and 2001.

Also, in this state (Massachusetts) I believe if you sell more then three cars, they will consider you a dealer and you will be stuck under the Lemon Law.As an aside, all through college and several years after, I would buy $500 cars, fix them or maintain them and run until something really big went wrong that I could not fix on my own

I would be very upfront with her and explain that you must maintain market rent for the unit because you need to have the income to support upgrades/repairs/maintenance and larger expenses as they arise. 

Does not look like it has been maintained in quite a while.