With the intention of completing one a week I will have a opinion post here weekly. 

Very few primary residences make good rental homes since people don't typically buy them with the intent to rent them in the future and don't look at the numbers in that critical light.Good luck, Andrew

Nonetheless, we got it back together and flipped it, which was the intent from the outset.

hi Friends, I started investing in residential SFH about two years ago and hold a couple of rental properties, familiar with how the residential process works, recently I came across an opportunity to purchase a small 1500 sq.ft commercial/retail unit in a new development in North Texas (near Frisco/ 121), I am dealing directly with the developer and he asked me for a 5K token deposit to confirm my intent, followed by contract etc..etc.., I trust the developer and hence no issues with the risk but I still wanted to take some precautions to protect my deposit, is there a TREC document or letter of intent I can use to protect my deposit, appreciate your guidance

You will get a lot of people that just want to see the place and have no intention of applying, but they want to know how much they can get for their money.

With intent to rent out..

If they file some legal complaint, you can play innocent and claim that it was a complete misunderstanding...and then take your time getting them back on.Odds are pretty good they are shysters that are already moved out and they have no intention of making good on what they owe.

Would you only consider appraised home value vs purchase cost or would you also take into account expected appreciation of a new upscale subdivision since the intent is buy and hold anyway?

This again kept my operational costs low during the rehab (as was my intention since I had no income other than my rentals).This property had been a rental-gone-wrong situation with a mom-and-pop landlord.

The good thing about laws is they are generally poorly written, and there must be a way to break the intent of the law, and follow the letter of the law as well.