I'm just now starting to see increasing numbers of stories about how (formerly) middle class people are having to sell important possessions on ebay and craigslist.

Other items increase or reduce your basis, too, so it could be all over the place.

First, you need to be really confident of the comps and the repair costs.

Let her know that she can have confidence that you'll handle everything right away and correctly.

And hey, if you'd like to bring up some legal issues that would be great, too, because hey - LLs are increasingly becoming 'targets' (ha ha) in more ways than one.

I'm not saying that you can't ever find short sale deals, but unless you've got experience, connections or are able to buy in bulk you are going to spend a lot of time chasing pennies.If you are trying to buy a property for $72K when it is really worth $78K, I'm pretty confident you can do better anyway.

With many lenders tightening up and me being on title for less than a year I just want to be able to justify the increase in price from what I paid for it.I don't want some hard-*** inspector who pretends to be a code inspector pointing things out that might not meet code but are still safe and scaring a potential buyer.

But just selling it immediately and for a 22% increase in price will raise red flags.

I was paid to learn the business this way and it gave me a wealth of confidence in choosing the property to invest in.

So not only is their equity shrinking from the declining market but their loan balance is increasing due to negative amort.