@Chris Martin  excellent post.. the reality this is as I stated NO warrenties and ALL risk on the buyer type of way to acquire assets. 

This moves them out of the way so your main folders are not so cluttered, but it still keeps them accessible.

My next goal for 2018 is to acquire 100+ units. 

I would make the payments directly to the mortgage company and would either have the statements mailed to me or see what I would need to do to get online access to review the account.In looking online, I see a few other strategies such as deeding the property to a land trust where the buyer would be the beneficiary and some people discussing the transaction with the bank and being open about it. 

In my opinion there are too many factors involved in an association that could disqualify the property as a deal and many of those things are not feasible to acquire in a couple of hours or perhaps even days.

If this center is kind of mid block, access and sight lines are crappy, etc. then developer might have to bend more to get a deal done.

You use this $96k to pay off your original loan of $80k and are left with $16k which you can use to acquire another $80k property.So yes, you now have 2 loans (which your rent should cover) but you've increased your total portfolio by $80k for no additional money!

My question is - would I need to connect the thermostat to my wifi, and just give general access to my tenants - changing the password to it when they leave? 

Yes Robyn - we have access to this category in Florida - and they are typically 'off-market' deals... we can narrow parameters once we get to know each other better (matching goals to available properties, and creating a strategy.)

In December 2017 we acquired property number 2 and 3.