My understanding is that a mastermind will help keep the members focused and "on-task".

That task sounds like an absolute gargantuan one right now for a guy who hasn't even bought his first property but the hope comes in the form of the momentum that you seemed to develop as time went on.  

I'm so happy that there is so much overall anti-guru sentiment on BP and that Josh does much to keep them on the sidelines on this blog.

Currently, the compliance piece, especially AML (anti money-laundering) regulations, are the main reasons for your hurdles....but if you can give more details I might be able to shed some light.

A similar law gained traction in Arizona earlier this year but was vetoed by Republican governor Jan Brewer after sheconcluded it "could result in unintended and negative consequences," like the state becoming perceived as a haven for anti-gay bigots.ACLU staff attorney Brooke Tucker told MSNBC that since the government is involved in protecting people against discrimination, the bill could open the law to legally protected bigotry."

You could very well formulate your own, in fact, we offer free #CRE analysis blogs/resources to do the very task, as I'm sure guides are also available on BiggerPockets.

Basically, my approach involves breaking the rehab down into components (I have 25 different components that I use), creating a detailed task list for each component (this is my scope of work) and then assigning a labor/materials price to each task on the list.For example, electrical is one of the 25 major components.

Have bought many used appliances from them and only once was there a repair problem and they gave me another appliance.I'm basically anti-appliance, I'm not in the appliance business.

Due to income limits, I wont qualify to write off property depreciation and expenses...unless of course somehow I can show I spent 750 hours in a year doing various tasks related to the rental properties as a RE professional.

When you get more people in your organization it may be easier to have a business account so that you can authorize employees for some of the banking tasks...