I started working in the trades when I was only eleven so I wasn't ever scared off by old houses.

Hi Michael,So there's negatively, neutrally, and positively leveraged debt.You don't want negatively leveraged debt because you need to bring money to the table each month to pay for the bill.Positively leveraged debt throws off cash each month.

If things go south and the property is sold off due to a default, you'll be second in line to get paid.

They all seemed to be reading off the same script , telling me how great they were , how they could make things easy  how selling a house is difficult without the assistance of a professional .

I have a CPA that I've used for years but when I brought up the investment to him he said my wife and I combined make too much money so there will be no tax benefits i.e. write offs, depreciation.

I don't even know of any markets where you can currently flip off the MLS.

It's 2 properties, single family homes, in the SF Bay Area.Sharing some details that might help inform the decision, let me know if anything else would be relevant.One property fully paid off, generates between $20-30k in profit after expenses (property taxes, hoa, insurance, etc).The other property is our current primary residency and would operate at a loss of about $10k/year.I plan to travel back to the US at least once a year, could that be a deductible expense with an LLC? 

Paying off my house and increasing my heloc to invest in other properties?

We have a lot of off-market inventory, much of that being MF

I think many investors are going around that rule in Baltimore City, so I assume they are doing it in other counties.Not trying to pick on you as you are 110% correct and understand you are just reporting the facts on the ground, just I think the logic about this, about “off market” deals is kind of off, like there are plenty of ways to make money skirting the rules, taking advantage of old people etc, and there are more profitable ways than real estate to do that, at that point your not really a real estate investor, your just someone making money not playing by the rules of your competition and taking advantage of people, which to me shouldn’t be considered “a real estate strategy”