Now I need to take action.

Interesting that this long thread was begun by the OP's first post.Only once did I seriously initiate legal action to compel the completion of a purchase.

Do you think homeowners and investors may be slightly disillusioned in their "consumer confidence" due to the high headline gains?..

Ryan,You are doing 2 things exactly correct: (1) Educating yourself and (2) Taking action.

Mentoring is a skil and very time consuming and as one person mentioned you may be developing a competitor.

The law says that you can not be enriched by your own criminal actions, so the insurance paid off the mortgage holder(s) but not the owner.

The only thing I would add are action steps to your plan.

If your DTI was out of whack because of other cash flowing properties that you hadn't held long enough to count towards income that's one thing, but if the problem is consumer debt that's another.

The second you hire him to do anything on acquisition, even if the offer is turned down or even if it is not made, he can no longer ethicly take any action to buy one of these properties, or even disclose them to another person because it would be a conflict with a client.

BTW, that will look great to your attorney when they ask him to take action against you.....if you have him on retainer he may not take the case at all, but he'll know how you're throwing a fit.