When he first heard about me getting into rentals he thought i was an idiot and his daughter and I would end up bankrupt living with them.  

Its was good business sense to bankrupt the company to get out of paying that amount.Just open another company, and continue on.

Or if your building can be used by..... lets say Jiffy Lube Oil Changes, and they're bankrupt, who wants to lease your space ?

The numbers won't compare to here because all the speculators went bankrupt years ago!

They also have full bankruptcy protection which is important if the company goes bankrupt, since you don't want your money to be in limbo or lost.

I would recommend it, as bank could get merged out, go bankrupt, or countless other things could happen that would leave you holding the bag.Mark

BTW, I'm glad I didn't end up buying that property ... beautiful as it was the repairs and historical society would've bankrupted me and even if not, I would have had to fence it and keep my young children locked inside to play, and it did not appreciate as well as my HB home, even though they were priced similarly back then ...

Work hard or work smart.And if you think California real estate will ever be worth half of what it is today based on a one time event during a global depression that saw entire countries go bankrupt, you're view of history is very limited.

side note: look at all the people who have gone bankrupt and come out clean the other side.

If the local economy tanked and I could not rent any of my houses I would obviously go bankrupt.