If they continue to speak to me and want to set up an appointment after that, I will then make the time to meet with them to build rapport, learn about their situations and do my best to make a deal.I am not sure I would give them any indication of your offer without first getting to know them.

To clarify, the only LLC requiring a C and SE form is a single member LLC that accepts the default tax status, and, operates an active income business.A residential rental activity is a passive income business and the disregarded entity LLC would still put all the LLC income and expenses on Schedule E (not C and SE).I concur :-) As the OP indicated the "tax guy" mentioned "using other tax strategies to make back the 15% or so you've lost in self-employment taxes" I spoke only to an LLC with earned income.

That one cost me $2,000 and no fix up to get $225 a month out of it.Chris' insight is indicative of what I've seen in these areas in my market.

UPB is pretty much irrelevant, except to say that you have a seller that will accept 2.5% of the UPB for the note, which to me indicates you are in one of the worst markets in the United States.

Is there an addendum that generally comes with short sales that indicates what is and what isn't expected of the buyer?

Now they're just treating it as a storage building apparently....These statements of yours indicate that the previous owners are still in possession of the property.

Everything that you have posted indicated that this is a money pit and will only suck more money out of the owner's pocket.

First, tax assessments are a bad indicator of value.

This indicates to me that these properties are at near bottom value leaving a great opportunity for a long-term buy and hold.

But empirically, we get a lot of feedback from buyers and their agents that indicates buyers really like this.