Heya Dave,My personal take is you loosely lump real estate investors into three groups: speculators, flippers, and landlords (emphasis on cash flow).

And that if there is damage in excess of the deposit you can keep some of the prepaid rent to cover that damage.Finally, and this is where I have the most heartburn, this person is willing to sign up to spend 50-55% of their gross income on housing.

Well, if push really comes to shove they can put a lein on your property, foreclose, sell it to the highest bidder, take the amount of their lein and send you the excess.

.-- Are your properties experiencing what some may consider excessive wear and tear?

Just because someone creates a rule to protect from excesses doesn't make the rule correct in all situations or for all purposes.

I don't want to wind up loosing out on a good or great profit twice.

My own dad, with a net worth in excess of $1 million when he died had a $6,000 life policy for burial expenses when he died at 84.

I just threw some loose numbers together last night see how it worked and now i'm locked out!

Just keep in mind that you guys will not agree on everything and if God forbid one of you could not fulfill the financial obligations down the line because of unforeseen circumstances, the other investor will hold the responsibility of maintaining the investment or risk loosing it altogether.

You would have to level the dilapidated structures, hire about four times the amount of cops that are currently there, have low taxes (or none at all) to lure businesses and residents, lock up every criminal that's running loose, and privatize all of the schools so there will be ones that people would actually want to send their kids to.There's no way I would ever live there in it's current state.