They earn money in 4 ways doing this - the initial writing of the loan, all the interest that you pay on the loan, then again when you refinance the loan, and then finally when you are paying on that loan that you just refinanced into.  

When you transfer money from your business banking account to your personal account, the IRS will see this as income, and you will be taxed accordingly.

Are there ways to tell if one area of a major city is appreciating in value vs another area (besides picking a dozen properties and analyzing zillow estimates (or sales comps/tax assesments, etc) ?

You will also want to be sure to keep your eyes and ears open to the possible tax benefits of investing in RE.

I ALSO can tell you, that when I finally turned the spigot back on, and started making self development a part of my annual budget, for me and my teams, the SUCCESS POURED IN.

It's pointless→ I want to evaluate how the property is performing NOW→ Where it COULD BE performing→ And WHAT it will take to get there.This involves (at a minimum) checking comps, creating a 5 year proforma, verifying taxes & insurance, and making assumptions about the business plan.You can't determine if a deal is a pass/go simply from NOI / Cap Rate.The art of underwriting involves finding value where others miss.If you're passing on deals just from dividing the in-place NOI by a cap rate, send those over here!

Congrats on finally deciding to take action!!

We are currently looking for a real estate investor CPA to assist us with tax filing and tax strategies throughout the year.

"Commercial" is meaningless for taxes.

They avoid accountability and as my manager often reminds our staff, "they are tenants for a reason".Recent applicant's bank statement showed she got $12k in income tax refunds.