They will usually hold the money and wait for resolution of any court action between you and the seller, then if they don’t receive notice of a resolution after a certain time period (120 days for the title company I usually work with) they will return the earnest money to the Buyer.

It's disappointing this thread went dead without a resolution.

The ADU should be easier, quicker, cheaper than making the property a true duplex.  

If you want, I am happy to walk you through a few analyses, or help flush out a strategy that will get you to your goals quicker!

In either case resolution of the interests may not be easy.  

Attorneys are sometimes slow so in the interest of getting some opinions a bit quicker I am asking the BP community   My question here is this. 

The lower I can get that down, the pref expense dollar amount goes down (in addition a quicker return for the investors) and by the time it comes to refi that's 5% less in the expense column.... 

Following 3 counter-offers, we finally agreed on a price of $752,000 with a quicker than expected close date.

With my clients buying commercial properties we look at cash on cash before the other drivers such as tax depreciation, principal paydown,etc.What cash target someone has will depend on their individual situation.Somebody 25 years old making 80k a year and in wealth creation phase might view higher cash flow as necessary to build wealth quicker to get away from the job they do not like.Somebody else in their 40' to 50' making 500k a year might look less at initial cash flow and more at outpacing inflation and equity multiple IRR growth over time for total return.There is not an absolute answer.

Becasue I am in this full-time and wanted to be in full-time I would have joined a team so I could close 30 deals my first year and get that experience, and wealth of knowledge under my belt quicker.