Somehow I feel the even after so much of effort, it is difficult to put a system in place and have a reliable and workable model for long distance real estate investing.

There is much more going on behind the scenes than you know.. trust me.After all this.. you're not even paying your realtor to do this for you!

As I have been reading a lot of terrible experiences and stories about landlords getting burned due to tenants simply taking their softness for granted and especially taking advantage of a lot of elderly homeowners to live in the places for free and in some cases even filing lawsuits against landlords to simply make money out of them.

my buyers on my new builds even get sewer scopes I personally would never buy a home without one..  

He told me that technically I dont even have to report that I am going to split the lot and build a duplex on it.

Best,Julie Muse So in the case where im in for 150K on initial investment + renovations and I pull out the 75% value to give me 150K and use that to pay off the initial investment + Renovations im technically break even in that case, but my real profit is the 50K equity left on the property?

There is even a safe harbor from the IRS in Rev Proc 2008-16. 

If you aren't happy, even excited about a deal, walk.

I won't say never, but 1% rule on small multifamily in DFW is so rare, I probably wouldn't even dream of that in today's market. 

This doesn't even account for the equity gain that is likely to be seen throughout the build processOn the flip side, depending on the location of your parcel, it could be in a high demand area that you could cash out by selling the property quickly.