Then if you need comps or something of that nature you can simply pay them a small fee to pull those for you.Also, if you did intend to pursue a property you found through them it would only be fair to work with them to get it. 

By nature, our equilibrium can pick up on sloped foundations.

It was their nest egg for retirement, so naturally, they wanted to get as much as they could.I took an FHA loan on the property, which required an appraisal to justify the loan amount.

Hi @Ryan Scott Isacksen,My firm would naturally 'hit' you with the minimum monthly HELOC payment in your DTI, but there is no seasoning requirement.So if you had a HELOC that you needed to draw to $100,000 for the down payment and it was at 4% interest only, we would do $100,000 * 4% / 12 = $333.33 and put that number in the "debts" column of DTI before we divided one column by the other. 

If they do, it can bankrupt you.Everyone has a different utility function for risk, so this is always going to be a personal decision...You are correct sir ... if there is a huge Earthquake and my properties fall into the ocean, I'm going to have a bad day LOL :) Similar to you, though, it is not my only income stream (though it is a core and my favorite one) and at the end of the day worse case is any natural disaster that doesn't kill me can't take away my REI skills ...

So flipping and wholesaling seem like a natural fit.  

How will Chinese billionaires, wanting to get money out of China before the yuan devalues, effect the price of a duplex in LA?  

As you search you'll see some of the other things like networking come naturally as part of that process. 

There is really nothing you can do about drunk people yelling outside your building at midnight.Today, I was trying to rent a 3 bedroom apartment in Lincoln Park and the biggest complaint is that it is above a nicely updated Chinese restaurant. -- I don't know if the renters were concerned about smell or noise but it definitely turned them away and I decided to drop that listing because its going to be too difficult to rent.As far as resale, I think that an accounting office, etc is much more easy to manage and buyers will appreciate that they won't need to deal with the higher rental turnover that a restaurant or bar would bring. -- Lastly, restaurants and bars can have a hard time staying in business and once that build-out is complete, you are sort of stuck with it.      

You decide on the price based on your budget and the nature of the renovations you're looking to include.