Stay focused, continue your education always, and keep plugging away.For rehab flips, don't look at conventional bank loans.

My tax situation varies a lot, but that's the scenario I'm looking at right now.My understanding is that the highly touted tax benefits of owning rental property boils down to [1] you can write off expenses (but I don't see that as a benefit; I don't think people should pay taxes on money they didn't make), and [2] you can depreciate the property.In the case I describe, it seems to me that not depreciating might be more beneficial.

Most of the valley has been experiencing sale price increases since spring 2012 due to inventory shortages and continued strong demand.

Hey Lamar Cannon I can imagine the Austin market performing nicely especially with UT continuously growing.

You may continue to 1031 over and over and over again.

I would continue exploring and keep this on the back-burner.

Instead of attempting to keep a borrower on the constant edge of failure and earning less, it's actually more profitable in the long run to advance your borrower more like a partner than a servant.Many borrowers also assume they can't get conventional financing, while I know some HMLs point them in the right direction, I'm sure there are just as many who would allow that borrower to continue thinking that the HML is his only hope.With that, if HMLs were to address a better standard of ethical and moral conduct thier public standing would certainly improve, being known as a specialty lender than a "hard money" loan shark.

Anything I have come across is simply priced so high because the perception is that prices are going to continue to rise and demand is very high.

Different states may vary in terms of risk but we had no problems.

@CL Tumlin ,Depreciation as @Dave T said will be prorated for the number of days in the year.Unless you initially segregated out the costs upon purchase between the individual components of the home you will continue to depreciate it over 27.5 years.