. - This gives you total control over expenses and gives you a bigger chunk of the net profits.

Lastly, when a self-employed individual maintains more than one trade or business, the questionarises as to whether the limit is based on the sum of earned income or loss from all trades orbusinesses under common control [as defined in IRC 414( c)) as modified by IRC 415(h)], or ifonly the trade or business maintaining the plan being tested is used.For purposes of the IRC 415limit, earned income for the self-employed individual is based on the sum of the earned incomefrom all the controlled trades or businesses, regardless of whether the related employer maintainsa qualified plan [Reg. 1.415-2(d)(6)].EXAMPLE: Andy, a sole proprietor, operates a law practice as a sole proprietorand has $100,000 of self-employment income from such practice for 2008 (prior tothe reduction for one-half of self-employment tax).

I have been reading through the posts about self directed IRA/401Ks/checkbook control etc and there is so much information!

I want to add that this also allows you to control the conversation and steer it in the direction you want.

The goal should be to "Control everything, own nothing".

You can influence (but can't control) how many people call you back but you can 100% control how many people that you call.  

With condos you also loose a lot of control over the property, especially in that price point, if the whole building starts to look bad you will start to loose value quickly, or if they decided that they need to do a lot of capital improvements then you will get additional assessments for that and as you mentioned appreciation wont be much if any.

And I didn't read about escrow being used this way but I thought it would be helpful if a seller might feel insecure with just a copy of a JV agreement from some investor taking control of their property perhaps in another state.

I'm in love with the business simply due to the amount of control available to structure deals in countless ways in real estate.

With the dollar range you are talking about, that should be very easy to build a pool of people who want to invest with you - as a private lender.Now on the business side of "private lenders" - these are companies that have a source of capital they do not control.