I feel like there are great opportunities in some of these places and I am pretty open to buying anywhere, but would love to hear some criteria that others use when buying in some of these labeled areas.

We have a chronically ill child, insurance is sky high, we cannot afford them to leave us with two mortgages. 

That said, me being the chronic optimist I am, I'm glad I came around to the idea of investing now instead of right before retirement.

Otherwise, it will turn the agent off and he/she could label you as not serious if you begin working with multiple agents.

You'll need to set up the following new accounts:Asset Account - Escrow at new company (I set my escrow accounts up as bank accounts)Liability - New Mortgage Payable.Let's assume the following balances before the Refi:Escrow account $500Mortgage Payable - $100,000.Long Term Asset - Property - $110,000Let's assume the following balances after the Refi:New Mortgage balance - $350New Mortgage Payable - $130,000Cash out $28,000Closing Costs and Escrow - $2000As you go through the Settlement Statement, you'll pull all of these items out and put them in the following journal entry:Mortgage Payable -      debit    $100,000New Escrow Account - debit   $        350.00 (You'll find this under the settlement statement, usually labeled as so many months of prepayment of insurance and property taxes)New mortgage Payable - credit -                       $130,000Cash/Checking Account   debit   $28,000Loan Amortization Costs -       debit           750.00           This should be only a fee paid as a percentage of the loan.  

CBRE labels it "Reserve-adjusted NOI", and is a final total just below "NOI" after baking in the reserves.

How we label such does make a difference.

No one likes wearing a label.

Now with the paragraph you quoted a deal structure like this could be labeled as "equity creation" and like you guys I do not see why this would be a scam.

Probably no cap-ex as it's a condo, but you need to factor those in.This being BP, be prepared for the hounds to come label this is as a bad investment (which it might be) and say you must invest OOS.Personally, this deal doesn't look too attractive, but it sounds like you are buying it for much less than market value.