The serious, long term implications should be obvious: If you are a newbie and have little or no experience with the standard purchase agreement (not to mention any non-standard agreements), are you really in a position to bluff your way through?

No wonder you claim a positive cash flow - you're pretending a BUNCH of the expenses are ZERO!

Building on what Wheatie said, using your more specific financing assumptions ($5K down, 6.3%, 30 years), along with the 50% rule, you get the following:Gross rent: $470Expense percent: 50%Expenses: $235NOI:$235Payment: $209Cash flow: $31+/monthSo, that's $369/year cash flow, which at least is positive in terms of pure cash flow, but let's calculate the returns:Cash-on-Cash: $369/$5000 = 7.38%Total Return (w/equity accrual) = 15.04%So, not a great return, but maybe not as bad as was originally portrayed; keep in mind that this doesn't include closing costs, which would reduce your return by a percent or two).

I am changing strategy and position in less than two weeks.

One of my private lenders is a career nurse who has several properties in addition to her now, highly lucrative, 6 figure plus salary.

As others have said, read all the posts and you will begin to gravitate toward one or more of the strategies that excite you and fit with your particular financial position, or personality, or time availability.

A lot of cash flow positive properties may influence the decision!

When you refi always make sure EACH property has positive cashflow including expenses that only occur once or twice every 5 years.The best way to view it is each property is it's own individual business.

The last REO deal I did was in 1996 so I'm not up on the latest trends and the positions of banks nowadays.

JR, It sounds like you are in a pretty good position to take on the commerical world.