I read a book when I was young called "The Power of Positive Thinking".

Anyone know what IRS position is on this?

I would allow him to sublet however I would have to approve of the roommate and it would make the process a quite bit more difficult.I'm still in that "new idea" phase and I only tend to look at the positives.

Is this a positive or negative for me as an investor?

You need to position yourself as investor-friendly and different from the average agents.

Otherwise it can get complicated as you really are putting buyers and sellers together, facilitating sales.You need to read your state statutes very carefully word for word as to what requires a real estate license and then don't do those things if you don't have a license.You can be an employee or memebr in a LLC that buys or sells, as a principal, in other words if BAC LLC buys a property and you are a memeber of BAC LLC, you can then be entitled to profits for the work you perform in that LLC.Another way is for you to take an option to buy and then sell your option, this is placing you in a position of havine an interest in the transaction, but those you sell to may have financing issues with this, it also depends on property restrictions or title limitations as beeing seen as sales during a restriction to conveyances, again check and see how these issues are viewed locally.Generally, you can not act as a third party between a buyer and seller and simply arrange or introduce deals and be paid a fee independly as that is a function of a real estate agent/broker.Lastly, it's easy to get a bad reputation amoung Realtors if you're known as a birddog, they will likely see you as unlicensened competiton and expect them to complain and report your activities.

The seller may have just put a warm body in place hoping to get a better sales price.

Form an LLC bank account and just pay out at the end of the year or could we do it monthly as long as we are cash flow positive after bills?

What are some of the trick successful people as yourself seek when looking for cash flow positive properties?

However since this is a SLO, you'd want to file a Memorandum of Option with the county courthouse to protect your position.