As always @annbellamy hits nail on head...If a hard money allows you to move forward on a profitable investment after paying the lender, you should strongly consider it, understanding there is risk in the event of nonperformance.

Like they say the profit is in the followup/follow through.Awesome success to you!

I also mentioned a profit sharing strategy and went into a convoluted explanation of my plan.

Obviously, if they find out that you made $5,000 on it - they might be a little miffed, which is why I would always disclose to the buyer what your role is upfront and have them sign something stating they are aware that your goal is to be the middleman and make a profit by helping connect them with a seller.If you find a buyer for your purchase and sale agreement, then you wouldn't have step 4 because you never owned it.

Jon Klaus,I'd rather make the dollar and pay the tax than lower my returns as a percentage; however, there are various strategies that can be used.Depreciation and cost segregation are great; however, you might want to consider the advantages of a non-profit to fund a pension for you, othe corporations, family partnerships, etc.

I wanted to have access to MLS so that I would be able to pull my own comps for the deals I evaluated, rather than pay a realtor a percentage of my profit to do the same thing.

Each of these homes produced a profit as large as my yearly salary and required MUCH less labor then a standard 2000 hour work year.

We only made $13k on that house and I split the profit w/ my partner...I probably spent 120 hours just doing manual labor + management of an extra 10 hrs a week during the rehab...so around 200 hours... $6500/200=$32.50 per hour....not bad, but not enough to quit the day job!

If it were me, I'd pull a little out, partner with some experienced in flipping, and reinvest your profit from those deals into rentals.

I am considering selling off some of my investments to move the profits into another area, I am very comfortable with pricing within my area and have a lot of experience showing units to potential renters.