I, however, am the buyer, I use craigslist, different contracts/paperwork, and get assignment fee.

They knew the borrowers received a consideration payment for the deeds from me, as I provided all paperwork for the purchase to the lender.

If I'm trying to buy your house and ask you what you want for it and you tell me a number, you're essentially saying "here's my price that I'll say yes to."

With NASA being shut down (essentially) I am wondering how the area is holding up.I would love to be able to buy and rent out my childhood home.

To do this, you need to have an "objective" scoring approach as outlined in this next link.http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2008/2/9/managing-tenants-part-three-written-criteria-for-tenant-selection/I just offer to first qualified applicant and don't process any applications beyond that one.One other way to break a tie is to see who is willing to commit their CASH money to lock in the unit; you would get the full amount of money that you require to hold the unit and get paperwork (a binder, holding agreement, or lease - whatever you use) signed that shows the commitment from the applicant.

We are negotiating with my aunt who is the POA of the trust, but essentially the trust's realtor and tax attorney.

The loan process atleast for residential financing has so much paperwork and governmental regulation that as a lender we get enough brain damage just from the operations of processing a loan.

I sent the mountains of paperwork to him yesterday so it's still way early in the process.

I say in theory because you need to keep things separate, financially and as far as paperwork.

There's a few problems with this - first is that the lender will want to know where the mysterious $10K came from and assuming you tell the truth, they will make your friend sign a letter to the effect of "Tia never has to repay this money it is 100% a gift".If he's comfortable doing that, then he obviously trusts you because as soon as he signs that document you have no legal obligation to ever repay.As for the terms - why would you want to buy a duplex and only essentially "own" one unit?