Its funny that i just spoke to someone at do hard money and he said the $3000, $650.00 of that goes to the evaluation of the deal, sending someone out to look at it and the remainder is skin in the game which is refunded after the deal is successfully done.I don't understand how the representatives of DHM who responded above failed to mention that.

Hard money..it can get very creative with creative financing, unlike local banks who can not approach financing creatively as hard money lenders can.Yes...I should have been a little clearer, since hard money also can be seen as creative financing, however for the most part you have to put up some skin in the game as they say in the industry.I am not talking about hard money since this is something I know a little about, but what I am interested in is learning these other creative financing strategies that I have not been exposed too.Just curious about them and how to apply them to unique motivated apartment building owner situations...!!

It's a simple math.Therefore the "excellent" PMs are probably just happened to be sitting on your low-maintenance property and easy to deal with tenants until they become "bad" PM when issues arise.I am not being dismissive of all PMs, I was a PM until I quit after I was owed thousands of dollars of maintenance cost when the landlord starting delaying his reimbursement because he ran into cash issues.I'm in favor of building an incentive structure so that the PM has a skin in the game and is motivated to solve the problem.

I prefer to get slightly more expensive properties that have tenants who have enough skin in the game that I can manage from across the country.

My family would like to move to a nicer area, and thought that using the house hack of buying a multi-unit property to live in one unit and rent the other would be a great way to get some skin in the game.  

I make sure my borrower has plenty of skin in the game.

Do this a couple times, and you'll have the money needed to put some skin in the game for hard money or private money.

..You will make mistakes but don't quit. you need tough skin and PERSEVERANCE in this business...

You will probably lose much more than that in the fight and probably won't prevail.The wholesaler is asking for the $5K from the rehabber so he knows the rehabber has some skin in the game.

On the other hand, a tenant that moves in with BB will have a build up of BB, shed skins, and fecal material on their beds and couches - strong evidence that they brought them in.I don't think it was mentioned yet - you should treat both sides.