It's been on the market for a while, which is unusual for our area, but then 'sell by owner' is not common up here.Have you been to any of the meetup.com events on real estate investing?  

Simply be sure you have a few exit strategies and run some worst case scenarios to mitigate your risk.

I'm located in an area where large multi family units are common, I'm VERY interested in skipping the SFH game and get right into investing in commercial apartment complexes. 

Just because we have a common uniform instrument in GSE's documents doesn't mean all loans use those nor does it mean all transaction types warrant those.  

Like @Chris Reeves states, there is usually an expiration date or possibly a balloon date coming and the worst possible scenario would be having to sell or refinance in a down market.I'm curious to hear what others have done.

Scenario - Purchase a building for $70,000Initial improvements $25,000New value $145,000Refinance at 75% of $145,000 = $108,750 mortgageThe problem that I am running into is that I am showing an long term asset value of $70,000 + $25,000 = $95,000 but an offsetting long term liability value of $108,750.  

Unless this type of set up and arrangement is very common in the area.

scenarios to form up your final Operating agreement.Good Examples of "What IF" scenarios:What if you get hit by a bus? 

Duplex houses are common.

@Eddie Memphis Common in this area to include water/sewer/trash.