I'm pretty sure an 8 year-old could tell you the answer, but since you can't figure it out, here it is: Just like in every aspect of life, some people are less ethical than others.

From a financial aspect, most investors do not know what their real cost of capital is or what the over the hump rate is, or your opportunity costs, so you don't have a basis to compare to!

Research THAT aspect for yourself and make sure they do it the BEST way!!!

Besides the FHA guidelines mentioned, which I haven't run into, there is also the title insurance aspect.

I think for Florida and many other area's, it's only half time.If this article (http://www.dsnews.com/articles/florida-courts-petition-for-nearly-10m-to-clear-foreclosure-backlog-2010-03-30) is to be believed, there are over 500K pending foreclosures in the Florida court system.If you add in the backlog of delinquent cases that haven't made it into the court system, strategic defaults, additional defaults from a record 12+% unemployment and 8+% underemployment, Option ARM reset, the end of the Fed MBS purchase (which could trigger interest rates to go up 250 basis points = less qualified buyers) and the end of the tax credit (why they would allow both of these to end at the same time puzzles me); I see a lot of hurting to come.

If so, I'd keep that aspect separate from the investment.

I do not see anything wrong with that.But government aid only makes sense if it furthers our long-term strategic interests, as it probably does with Pakistan but not with Haiti.

I am working on improving my credit to get into the rental aspect of investing and some flips.

So far I have only bought properties for rental income , and did one flip, but would love to learn more about other aspects of real estate - I'm a little interested in notes.

Time-stamped photos, detailed entry tracking, and communication portals seem like aspects that would make management more efficient and effective on the administrative backend.