Is having a goal of owning 200 HMO's in 10 years far fetched?

Because you are on the hook for half a million bucks with someone you probably haven't worked with extensively in the past.  

Provided you weren't trying to dump under performing properties at the time, you may have experienced some short term heightened turnover if tenants lost jobs in the recession, but I still would think that replacement tenants would have been easily found as it is not like all of sudden millions of people no longer needed housing to stay in, so everyone would eventually land somewhere, right, particularly if you are in an upper income area, where unemployment wasn't nearly as badly affected? 

Personally guaranteeing a million dollar note is too scary for me.

I would charge a fee to the client and then when they bought take that charge off of the commission as a credit to them.Don't work for free on promises of future money.If a broker/agent wants to stay in this game they need cash flow and not promised returns that may never materialize.I work on bigger type deals and couldn't see running comps all day long for a 20k purchase and the resale at 60k.You are only making a few k for a lot of time.Now if this is a distressed buyer buying 1/2 million to a few million dollars at a time the game is changed completely on what I can make for my time involved.This is just how I look at it.It's not just about time in the business it's about volume of sales as well and experience.

Value is over 1 million I only owe 240k.

The 4 million foreclosed homes in last 5 years will cause long lasting changes, reduction in neighborhood stability, and eliminate the # 1 method folks have created wealth over the last 50 years-their home equity.Irvine increased from 40-50% renters in last 10 years25 cities now have more renters than ownersSince 206,rental households have grown 692,000 a yearSince 2006, owner-homes have dropped 201,000 a year.Then I read some more articles that talk about a DOUBLE DIGIT drop (11.6%) in RE values currently.Then I read some more articles that seem to say the dream of home ownership might not be so good any more.

Stephen,Time is money.If you are at the top of your game you expect the money to match.There are too many investors out there who can show me hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in their bank accounts and stock portfolios etc.All I have to do is have a listing they want to buy.Guys with no money locking up property to try to wholesale commercial real estate and "make it rich" are a waste of my time.I play percentages.A direct buyer has a much higher percentage of closing than a non-direct buyer because there are so many more pieces involved to make a successful transaction.If an investor wastes my time and wasn't a real buyer they are actually taking money from me.The reason is I have nothing to show for working with them versus I could have spent the time with someone who could close the deal.Hard money isn't bad as long as they have some money in the deal.There are a lot of people who don't have 10 cents trying to be something there not.Everybody has to start somewhere so nothing wrong with it.Just be honest about where you are TODAY and where you want to be TOMORROW.Showing a proof of funds valid within the last 30 days would go a long way with a broker/agent to take you seriously.Obviously if you don't have that and are trying some off the wall stuff you will meet a newer agent with very little experience or someone in the game awhile but hasn't had much success.Just like Jake I will vet a potential investor client just as much as they qualify me.If both parties are not asking questions and verifying there should be some serious red flags that come up.

If title/escrow don't disburse the funds exactly as described in the settlement paperwork, that's millions of dollars in fines.

A colleague of mine recently told me a story about how he made 8 Million dollars from 1987-2007 (lost some of it during the market crash).