You have to sign the whole amount over to them.

I may renegotiate with them to provide half of the option fee or may just take the hit and give the whole amount.

You are at more risk, as a long distance owner, to the small-time or part-time PM, who gets worn out and just drops the whole thing to take a day job or focus on their real estate agent work.Once the PM has the property under mgmt, there are a host of things you can do to help ensure that they're not fleecing you on maint fees, and are placing good tenants.

Since it is a primary residence I would rather hold my cash and use the future BAH to achieve a specific equity level in the future.I suppose the only thing not mentioned is what happens if you get new orders away from your location where you purchased the home.

Pros- relatively easy to comp, generally lots of similar inventory; usually limited rehab requiredCons- higher holding costs; bureaucracy/admin issues with HOAsThis is assuming a flip- if you're thinking buy and hold then that's a whole different ballgame with different pros/cons.

It's unfortunate but not surprising that there isn't some "neutral" website or source that can provide these emails for people who want to go directly to the listing agent, since the feeds don't contain the lockbox codes, loan info. or other sensitive information, but the whole RE agent/MLS system seems to be set up to protect agent's jobs rather than make transactions efficient or easy.

Okay the 4 unit buildings when built in 1981 have one meter going in.There is no sub meters.Fulton county water stated that is what the builder requested in 1981.Fast forward to today.Fulton county does not do sub metering for these buildings.The water company stated these buildings only have a 3/4 line meter on one and 1 inch line meter on the others.Water bill has been high.We fixed a bunch of leaks and filed leak adjustments to Fulton county.Water company says they can test meter to make sure it reads right.Previous owner had high readings as well.Some tenants are only supposed to have 2 to 4 people living there on lease.End up having 8 to 10 people and they use the water constantly even with no leaks.Currently we provide water,sewer,trash into the total rent.We have to do it this way because with one line if the 3 tenants pay the bill but one does not the water company will cut off water to the whole building and lien it.Since it is one line into the building even if all leaks are fixed I can't go up to a tenant without proof they are using more water.I can tell tenant with an adjusted lease they are responsible for any usage after 50 bucks a month but they might not pay the difference.My plumber told me of a company that will install individual meters and then bill the tenants directly.Have any of you had experience with these companies?

Other thing I'd like to mention is that the owner has another comercial property right next to the one I like and he has not rent it nor sale it in a whole year.This makes me wonder if it's a good idea, maybe small business are unstable so my investment will.What do you guys think?

I have thought about getting a brokers license in a single licensure State and then coming back to Maine to take the Brokers test to get around the whole issue, but I feel I would be missing out on the valuable experience that a seasoned agent could share with me.

. :)I'm happy to tell the whole story once I receive the official letter from the IRS (a couple weeks), but long story short, I moved a large chunk of my retirement funds into a self-directed product offered by a relatively large financial company.