I'm also aware that 99% of borrowers walk away, not sure just guessing there, and probably in most cases there is not a great deal of equity, but if there is and you lend/foreclose to gain properties you'll have several issues if someone cries foul, you can be sued and you'll lose as the concept of collateral is not as a profit center but to ensure that a lender doesn't lose amounts lent.That's true in all states, but can be more of an issue as to the disposition of collateral under state laws, imposing types of sales, reduction of price or holding auctions.

Having a pm will take a lot of weight off as long as you do your due diligence on them.

The positive definitely out weight the negative in my opinion!

Principal reduction does not play any role in Net Income calculation.

He told me, "As long as you show up at the county appeal, they'll give you a mininum of 20% reduction."

Different avenues of real estate investing require different thresholds.If you make 200k a year income and have 300k to 400k to play with versus you make 50k a year and have 25k saved up my answer will be different on what is available.Your returns you want annually,versus money down, versus more weight on appreciation and tax write off then cash flow will determine many things.I often go through this process with clients where I talk about investing in houses, notes, apartment buildings, triple net leasing, etc.I tell them what I think sounds like a fit for them.

Go at it as a weighted %, COC and financed amounts in your IRR, each computed and viewed together as your WAR, weighted average return discounted.

So I went on a big debt reduction program. 

I would want to see a downtrend way in advance to go ahead and get feelers out to lease the space than being blindsided with rent reduction request etc.If they request something not required of the landlord in the lease the landlord can also request back in return to modify items they do not like.

The city prioritizes their massive blight reduction efforts on the areas along the main avenues people commute to work on.