Occasionally they may know of deals as well being in the local real estate industry.

The industry term for this is “dealer property” there is a great deal of case law on the issue as to what you should be considering in performing this analysis.If the property is treated as inventory, the gain is ordinary income, not capital gain.A conservative approach is to hold the property 2-years post completion to treat it as a capital asset.You should speak to your tax advisor on this issue as it is a complex analysis.

Or they think the NAR and MLS run the industry, and their 'brokerage' (and by extension, they...) are to "report all earnings," and somehow a PROSPECT (vs. a CLIENT) is somehow "brokerage property."

But you will need to have money to make the interest payments each month, pay  Utilities and such.

Utilizing a HELOC is often a good idea so long as you purchase a cash producing asset that has returns higher than the cost of the HELOC interest.

What is the industry standard.

Hi @Tim Kunz, when I pay utilities for my tenants and then bill them back, I told my PM to always send them a copy of the bill so they know why I am billing them X or Y.

You realize when you get the industry job, you get taxed so much it makes you realize you cant save money to wealth, it needs to be passive. 

This is another good option if I intend to utilize my 401k plan for investment.

I am excited to be writing my first blog post and learning more about the real estate industry.