Your profile mentions that you are an agent with rentals.You would want to see if you are able to claim real estate professional status.If you are able to claim real estate professional status, you can potentially offset the rental losses with your real estate agent income.Furthermore, TN does not have a state income tax allowing you to be more open with your options.Best of luck

Actually, a friend once mentioned a unit in Eugene that had to be re-leased after a nasty storm tore off part of the roof.. it’s gritty, hands-on stuff like that which rounds out your perspective.At the end of the day, you don’t need a flawless blueprint to get started.

Like Greg mentioned, I would be concerned with his/her responsiveness while I was living there. 

Banks do not sell notes to just anyone off the street.When you acquire the note, you are now a lender with a collateral interest, as Dion mentioned, get a deed in lieu of foreclosure, you could give cash for the keys.Over the years I've done this many times before the words "short sale" were ever adopted in real estate terminology.

As mentioned elsewhere, breakeven on cash flow is not the same as break even for taxes.Let's make some assumptions:Rental income = $1000Mortgage payment = $400 - but $300 is interest and $100 is principalOther expenses (repairs, advertising, utilities, etc) = $600Depreciation = $250The above scenario creates a break even from a cash flow perspective, however the tax scenario looks like this:Rental income minus the mortgage interest (principal is not deductible) minus the other expenses minus depreciation looks like this:1000-300-600-250 = $150 LossIf your income is over $150,000, then you cannot deduct that loss, but you can roll it over to future years. 

There are a number of meetups in Sacramento and we have been coordinating the dates among hosts so that there is no overlap - I run the West Sacramento Meetup that @Ben Howard mentioned (we gather every 4th Tuesday of the month).Here is a list of meetups that we're in collaboration with (they are all based on an abundance mindset that we have here on BP)- 1st Tuesday - REI Connect @ Roseville Meetup (reach out to @Nicole Masters)- 3rd Tuesday - Investor Mixer @ Crawdads on the River- 3rd Thursday - Folsom Out of Bounds (dates may shift a bit)- 3rd or 4th Wednesday - Real Estate Round Table (CH Cafe & Grill) - they recently relaunched and stabilizing the schedule- 4th Tuesday - West Sacramento Real Estate MeetupI'm working on putting together an easy to access list that Sacramento investors can refer to.

If you have the depth for an inside mount, I'd go that route with curtains, as mentioned previously. 

I agree with @Michael Baum do guests mention in reviews?

This has a cost but nothing close to what you’d have to pay investors in a pool, which is something else you mentioned.

The only way to get help with the down payment before closing would be through a HELOC, personal loan, or private lender, as others have mentioned.