If you can't keep control of your personal finances, you are highly unlikely to succeed in real estate investing.

Then they can take control.

Certainly there is some level of control that I would be giving up, but this is where vetting the company, reviewing the agreement, and building trust comes in.

You get engagement from people responding, I can't control that.

The only thing the spouse could do is claim the mortgage interest on his/her tax returns.But that would be wrong since you have control over the property. 

If you can't keep control of your personal finances, you are highly unlikely to succeed in real estate investing.

saying they have no control over how values are determined and that they just had an update to the system and that's why my value was affected.

The LLC he controls bought a property for $140k and put $15k of work into it.

Just because you buy other properties high doesn't mean these owners will sell high, or that it won't get handed down to less desirable family members.You can only control what you own.

Introducing Self-Directed IRAsA self-directed IRA is an individual retirement account that allows you to take advantage of all the same tax benefits of a traditional IRA, but it also allows you to have more control of your funds AND you can invest in alternative investments like real estate and real estate syndications.