.: I think I will be fine with the emotional aspect of it.

Understand about the marketplace aspect of the site and agree....Thanks Keith for the excellent advice!

There is another aspect, they can cancel the listing agreement and sell without paying a commission if that broker/agent was not the procuring cause of the sale.

A rental car business is a good lot parking aspect as some airports bid the space on airport grounds.The FAA has jurisdiction of all airport grounds, improvements and roadways.

Samuel, you're picking at a market with fresh wounds, 3 years might work but I'd generally not, that's cutting it too tight actually at 36 months, there needs to be a couple months to finance and close if everything else is good. 4 or 5 years is more like it since you're looking at newly foreclosed/delinquent borrowers.Also, an option sets a price up front to be sold in the future, you don't get the equity gained over the contract period unless you state that it is to be sold at a future based price, like an appraised value and doing so puts additional strains on a buyer as to the LTV.Lots written here about lease options, I suggest you study here and close the guru books as to the marketing aspects until there is a clear understanding of what an option is and the financing issues involved

The rural/single employer aspects introduce the risk.

As a general rule, people selling a particular strategy tend to oversimplify, exaggerate, downplay the difficulties, risks and neglect to mention the expertise, capital and experience it takes to be successful in any aspect of the real estate business or any business for that matter.Interestingly, investors (of any particular strategy), that are not selling something, will tell you how hard they worked, how much experience they needed, how lucky they were, and how many years they "put in" on the way to success.

Where aspects of a borrower are rather lean or show a concern, it's the compensating factors of being over the top in other areas that can make a difference.

You make some points I hadn't considered, especially the inflationary effect they are having on various aspects of the business.I was interviewed by NPR's Marketplace Monday and the reporter's final question addressed how I saw this playng out.

A friend of mine is looking into doing a 1031 exchange on some property; however, he's getting some conflicting info on one aspect of it so I thought I'd ask the experts here.Here's the situation:He is selling some vacant land that he's owned for several years and is going to buy a rental property.