Contractor's spend a LOT of time with prospective clients and these are hours that are non productive to the contractor.

Understand that lenders are selling a product, money, they are in business they aren't there to do favors.

Are there ways to branch out into other revenue streams using the knowledge you have to stabilize your income?

Just my guess.Completely agree with everything else you said, some stability in our market, and a positive year would both be great!

Its not that I dont believe in my product, but that I have made a professional commitment to my clients to not compete with them.

The product (providing affordable housing in the form of a mobile home) is not illegal in itself but the method of delivering this product (owner-financing the mobile home) is in question.

I just like to endorse good products, especially when it worked for me.

Willing to do work upfront to get a property stabilized (over the first year or two if necessary) but after that would like to minimize workload.So yes the reason we are open to looking outside of LA is because there just aren't many properties here that cash flow as well as elsewhere it seems.Any examples of out-of-state apartment deals that were done recently with real numbers that would be doable for us?

You should be more concerned with income history (stability and sufficient income to afford to rent from you) and payment history (does their credit report and report from previous legitimate landlords demonstrate they pay their bills and rent on time?)

Generally property values increase during this period of everything being new and shiny.The second stage is equilibrium, where property values stabilize.