Too far out for me to get interested though, like to stay local.Jim, one thing I've noticed is that my banks never were interested in my portfolio of land (as collateral) until I showed them all the owner financed notes that I had against them.

The secretary keeps brushing me off that the guy is busy with another client.Initially, the guy issued me two promissory notes for the money I lent him.

I thought I'd be opening a pandora's box.I must say, though, a recent news story on NBC about a garden at the white house, and the boom on growing your own;http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#29803183and noting that there hasn't been a garden at the white house since the "victory garden" of WWII, does make one stop and wonder.Ralph

You do have UBIT implications but they can be avoided by simply paying off the note 365 days prior to selling.2.

There is a sticky thread about it.For lower priced houses, I also use the 2% Rule, which just says that the gross monthly rent needs to be about 2% (or more) of the acquisition cost (purchase price + rehab) if they are going to cash flow properly.

You need to read one of the sticky threads on the 50% Rule (in the General or Landlording forums).

There are several sticky threads about rental property expenses.

There are some sticky posts in the Rental property forum that will give you a real life view of the "50% rule" (expenses are 50% of the gross rent), and buy you need to do much better than the 1% rule to have a deal.Frankly, I can't think of a worse place to invest than Detroit.

It is also evident that you left out many of the operating expenses, such as management (even if you do it yourself), utilities (even if only during vacancies), office supplies, legal fees, evictions, damage done by tenants in excess of the security deposit, entity maintenance, lawsuits, capital expenses (not technically an operating expense), etc, etc, etc.You might want to read one of the 50% Rule sticky threads in the General and Landlording topic areas.Good Luck,Mike

Hello everybody, I'm relatively new to real estate investing and have found a spec builder who is willing to let me take over his mortgage/note on the home with some cash flow for himself.