I would be curious to hear from a business broker how much brand recognition plays into the sale of the business.

With a 50K adjusted basis gain recognition and purchasing 100K less than what you sold the entire depreciation recapture and gain would be recognized.

If you are going to start listing properties, unless you start amassing hundred of agents and have hundreds of For Sale signs in the street at all time, it will be hard to get new brand recognition.

If you could study one aspect of real estate with the intention of getting some sort of certificate or recognition that would help with investing, what would it be?

Rich Rich,I have a neighbor who volunteers for "Operation Smile"; this organization gets volunteer medical staff to travel to under-developed countries and perform surgery for cleft palates (primarily, some other facial deformities are also handled I believe).

Hear is a list I found on google for firms in the bay area but not all of them are Real estate funds http://www.americanregistry.com/recognition/largest-private-equity-firms-in-the-bay-area/111380 .

And there is a great deal of name recognition among selling brokers - they know we can fund and close!  

One way to do this is to wait until the person you are done speaking with is completely done with talking, pause for 2 full seconds, allow your facial expression to take in what they just said and then respond to them.

Actually, with face recognition and online public records searches that might be slightly possible.

As Tod mentioned, the allocation of expenses will stand out and the recognition of income.