Swimming any unknown waters carries uncertainties, and doing so with no experience makes the trek even more hazardous.

In fact REO's are carried on the bank's books as a liability, not an asset.

You fund your LLC with a capital contribution, then the LLC carries an "Investment in XYZ Syndicate LLC" when you form your syndicate with the other partners and buy building XYZ.That should give you pretty solid protection and tax advantages.  

Have the seller "carry" any portion of the down payment you cannot come up with.3.

This seller carry back loan would give me the down payment and then some for the down payment on the second 4 unit building.

If it is against the rental it increases the loss that I carry forward so has no real impact to me at tax time.

I'm willing to owner carry, but so far only tire kickers or people with only a 2k to put down.

Now, if your plan were to live in half the building (the smaller unit) and use the larger unit as a mortgage helper, you would look at things through a different lens.I am a big proponent of improving the energy efficiency of older buildings, but am not found of carrying the utilities - I like everyone to be responsible for their own resource consumption.  

Agreed, you shouldn't be doing any sub2 deals where you can't at least sell it and break even, or have the reserves to carry it.  

(or anyone) so from what you said above, the HELOC allows you to not pay until you draw on it but has a higher rate (I read elsewhere that if you carry a high value on your HELOC it can adversely affect your credit score, T/F?)