I'm wondering if there may be a ground floor investment opportunity with my building if DD checks out or if the area is still to much of a risk to invest in?

It showing up in a public search is enough for me.That would cause more damage to them than posting a review on a site that most landlords probably haven't heard about and less risk of a lawsuit.

You may ask, why not do private lending--I would rather spread the risk of the deal with another person and not have to pay interest in a borrowed downpayment.What % equity should I keep for arranging the deal?

If you buy from some owner and then flip it for a significant profit, the issue of your greater knowledge comes into play and, depending on your relationship, flipping a contract can be considered a net listing issue, having a seller agree to accept a certain price with you taking all the profits above that price.Next, is the broker liability, if you are out there doing flim-flam investor strategies the risk of deals going south goes up, if you tick off some owner in doing a screwy deal your broker can be held liable.Barring that and other smaller issues, like marketing, co-broker arrangements, commission credits on deals with owing the broker a % of the credit being ironed out, no broker can really keep you from owning real estate.

If you don't you run the real risk of just increasing that mess faster than you are able to increase your income.While you are doing that, you need to read everything related to business and real estate you can get your hands on.

To some extent, your interaction with the borrower to this point could be more of a risk and liability as you may be perceived as working with a borrower on modification terms or negotiating with the mortgagee and borrower without a proper license.

If you have a strong historical capital and rent appreciation rate it might make sense to get into this market and wait for natural rent increases and appreciation to take hold and make for better investments if you wanted to stay local.You could also consider looking for turn-key investments in another city (Indy, Memphis, etc) where the returns could be much better - but the risk without having the ability to drive by the properties could be greater.

That second concern is well-being of your unit; should temperature in that unit get too cold, risk of pipes freezing becomes a concern.So if tenant stays elsewhere and is OK with that, you still have to prevent pipe freezing somehow.

I'd risk to say the housing types that Matt R. is looking for aren't the cheapest ones.

But for me, when I assess the cost vs. benefit and risk, it is not worth it.Here is the problem I have with EBB heaters.