There's the board fees, MLS fees, lockbox access fees, and you will need to place your license with a brokerage who will charge you either a percentage of the commission (for beginning agents this can often be 30-50% of the commission on each deal) or a desk fee which may be a couple hundred dollars a month or more.You mentioned cutting the cost of an agent to find a deal for you, so you may want to try looking at things this way.....check the costs of getting and maintaining a license for the first 4 years, including going to your local real estate association and asking about their fees, interviewing some local brokers to determine how much it will cost you each month to have your license with them and weigh that against how much an agent you hire may make in the same 4 years.

If the percentage of condos that can be rented in the complex isn't limited its a non-issue.

I'm not the tax guy here so I'll summon @Steven Hamilton II From a general tax angle and accounting side, the profits will be realized as it is received, you'll have interest income and the percentage of principal received allocated to profit will be considered the gain.

On new construction, especially new construction that's being built as "spec" (meaning no buyer or tenant up front) it's ALWAYS been extremely difficult to get funding for, and only a small percentage of lenders do new construction, because it takes a whole process being in place to service such loans.

@Kenny Anderson , the way I understand cash on cash is: the return on the money you actually invested (in a percentage form).

Most people whom I know that bid on short sales don't even use the listing price as a point of reference but rather use comps and percentages to come up with an offer price.Best of luck if you decide to make an offer.

Some will include a percentage of your rehab costs.

It will cost you a couple of percentage points, but it will get the deal closed for you.

Ultimately I think its more up to the owner than you trying to force a client into renting but if your end question is "does it make sense" and your job is a property manager, well, you get paid if you place a tenant (if that's how you arrange your contract) so do you want to get paid and is the amount of work worth the few months potentially you will be collecting a percentage of rent.If all those things are accurate, in order to protect yourself, you might want to stipulate that if you are able to place a tenant, and the military member comes home earlier than 1 year, you get a set amount in fees payable by the owner in order to cover the placing of the tenant.

Anyone advising you to do that is practicing financial malpractice.When a self-directed IRA uses debt financing, there is a small tax on the percentage of the gains that are attributed to the borrowed funds.