I know the feeling and you have demonstrated that there is no excuse to achieving your goal....that's if you desperately need to attain it and driven to doing so.Now that you have taken action the sky is the limit.Again, congrats and best wishes with your future REI activities.

I haven't done this in a while, but on the Schedule A, I think, there is a line for "interest paid on a mortgage" for which you have a statement from the bank stating how much you paid (don't know the form numbers, I'm NOT an accountant, although I played one on tv).

It appears they were either short-nailed (3 nails instead of 4) or applied using a nailgun with the pressure set too high (over-driven).  

Given that a default on the loan and the ensuing 'police work' to collect collateral or repayment would be complaint driven and the parents would obviously not object or complain I doubt that anything would ever be a problem or be scrutinized.

Chris Mason  disagree on the smart cookie.... just attend any REIA meeting you have all sorts of folks looking for the unicorn private lender.. and talking folks into lending out of their IRA you have beginners not really knowing what they don't know... and of course maybe east coast were they are attorney driven they can get some advice.. but anyone west coast can just fire up a DT and note record and fund... when I had my HML company in 'Oakland we had a ton of IRA but I was placing the money for them  as the RE broker

Marcus A. I

Private Money is hedge fund driven and the only thing the lender cares about is Internal Rate of Return (IRR) for their Investors.  

Have you driven north through Everett on a weekday afternoon, the Snohomish Squeeze?

I've driven by several places I'd like contact the owner about (looks sort of neglected and definitely the shabbiest house on the block), but I don't know the best way of going about it.

Thank you so much @Amy A. I