I wanted to see what you guys thought of it. 1) Fix up the old house (5k-10k rehab), then refinance it and deal with the fact that I might not make much cashflow on it in exchange for the 40k-50k that I'll be able to reinvest.

Maybe you even exchange it for a larger property of $5M and walk away with $5M this time, now you're up to $8,000,000.

I love free labor in exchange for education.

In my area in exchange for seller financing, seller usually gets 10-25% down and +1 to +3 percent to the going rate, so your down / rate are excellent.5.

@C Coley Mitchell - to address your question directly, the 1031 exchange is not the limitation.  

The market here is filled with so much cash, from both locals and foreigners from LATAM and other places.

Sometimes they will try to talk a property owner into exchanging the property and equity for an UPREIT stake into their company.

In exchange, you get to submit offers in his name with his POF.

The global financial crisis has hit the native property market quite differently than the holiday home market which dominates the costal regions.If you want proper analysis you need to look at local publications, English language versions will be very Costa-sentric and will provide a pretty narrow view, 50% of the property in Spain is bought and sold by Spaniards but foreigners of various nationalities all profess to be experts in the country as a whole.

Can that person apply for a 1031 exchange for a property of equal value?