Jon touched on this, I wanted to elaborate: The main reason is that the bank must be able to balance its fixed/floating assets and liabilities.For example, think of the bank's books when you take a loan.

Example: If you can sell the property for 150K with costs to get it sold of 15K (commissions, closing fees), spend 100K buying and repairing and holding costs, this leaves a pre-tax net of around 35K (150 - 15 - 100 = 35).

Example Stove for 350 dollars or whatever, then depreciate that over 5 years..My final and most important question...I understand that I can depreciate the rental unit.

Make your offer on that.As you can see in your example HUD doesn't do a great job of managing their properties.

(We'll ignore closing costs and broker fees for this example) (You are using a broker, aren't you?)

For example, one house down the street that was bought for 64k, were listed at 52k.

Make it shine inside, impeccably clean, fresh paint, new carpet if stained or worn.Have it professionally staged, this has made a huge difference in the time on market for my properties.Don't worry about selling from a distance, your Realtor and Title Co. will help you through it.

For example, there is absolutely no benefit of having joint credit cards.

I spent a lot of summers in istria(the peninsula in west of the country,to the border with the slovenia) and in my opinion there are a lot a beatiful places,especially on the west coast(few examples are litle and relatively peaceful cities like porec,rovign or novigrad), wich have a big potential for every kind of business or just for build the house of your dreams by the sea,but until now foreign investitors were not allowed to buy these proprieties unless they were a company owners.finally, today the croatian government opened the door to everyone who want to buy a house, a app. or a lot in this beatiful country. personally i think this is a great opportunity for everyone interested in making a smart investiment!!!

Another example is www.yaho.com