Should they drop the butt....absolutely not, but "dirt-bag" I am not that silly yet.Smokers have money.....many of them have LOT'S of money, might want to bear that in mind.

Would this have any bearing on whether I should be offering holding paper vs lease/land contract?

It bears repeating: stick to your numbers.

Usually the listing price has absolutely no bearing on what the bank will accept, unless it's a preapproved FHA short sale.  

I will be asking questions and guys if i sound silly at times  bear with me.

@Robert Kenny One thing to bear in mind with the USDA Loan, they can take an extremely long time to close.

I'll be reading as much as I can and asking a lot of questions, so bear with my newbness!

How you setup your real estate holdings now, will have a bearing on how easily they can be rolled into a trust down the road with minimal tax consequences.  

For that, you have to go to the interior - smaller towns, further from the border, more reliance on one industry for their jobs, lots more land to expand into, and so on.That's my take anyway :)*Clarifying my comment on Rent Control:- You can lease out your home/apartment/whatever for as much as you want/whatever the market will bear.- The control is in the increases: those are regulated province wide by the government.

I think it bears stating that you should not view the financing you get at the beginning of the deal as your final loan.Investors should look at three stages of financing to calculate the value of a deal.