One thing is always in common: the people with the true deals will be your sellers.

In Santa Ana, it is common for the tenant to sublet the rooms out to other tenants.

I only consider court because this guy was extremely confrontational, aggessive and a scammer and I hope to maybe slow him down from pulling this crap in the future.

The only thing I could think of is that they could refuse to issue you a card unless you get your photo taken, and then subsequently refuse to allow you admittance to any common areas (i.e. pool, club house, etc) where the cards are required for admission.

We commonly encounter folks investing in RE with an IRA who would have been better-served by a 401k.

Make sure you have enough in common that you can more than tolerate him using your stuff and so on.

All of this activity has made the good real estate deals extremely scarce in some markets.

At this point, they should have a program, IMO, to make you feel extremely comfortable investing from a distance and if they don't I would not use them.Last piece of advice.

There are a number of approaches to the increase; property taxes went up, insurance went up, some utility that you might pay has gone up (maybe trash or sewer), can't risk losing IRS deductions for expenses by having rent too low, common area maintenance increased, etc.

I love casement windows and would go with those in a heartbeat, and they are way more common here.