When I was reading your update, I was going to say Ditch the Realtor! But, then you did We bought our house (that we live in) with a family friend as the realtor...when we started considering investment properties it was just so hard with her, so we switched to someone knowledgeable in the field. It was like night and day! She actually helped us (walked us through all the pitfalls, due diligence) buy a foreclosure at the courthouse and didn't even make any money...so one day if we buy of the MLS we will use the same realtor for sure.