Get a good estimate of what it should cost to make all the repairs, deduct that figure plus maybe 10 -15% more as a "buffer" in case you discover it's worse than you thought and present this to the seller.If your seller is intelligent and motivated to sell, and you present them with the facts, and a well written proposal detailing the costs involved to get the house into the condition that you thought it was in when you made your offer, chances are they will understand.

Your youth, intelligence, desire, "telling your story" and most important "hands-on experience", should help you reach most any goal, including a nice portfolio of income producing properties Josh!

The best time to get the "savings" is while the area is artificially depressed with LOTS of short sales.

Commercial lenders can be found in the UCC.So, these arguments about who a private lender is can be clearly found by the process of elimination and by specific exclusions in laws and regulations.No skin off my nose if folks would rather argue about it, if a situation ever pops up where it matters, you can learn later on, probably the hard way for some.I recall an examination of a bank in Arkansas, the President got into banking by the virtue of having the money to do so, there is no intelligence test required to own a bank.

Then, as the Fed realizes what's going on, they slash short-term rates by 50-100bp/meeting to prevent a collapse, rapidly decreasing the short end of the curve, and causing an artificial steepness to the curve because of all the QE going on.

Darwin stated that it is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who are best able to adapt.

In this conversation, even very intelligent and capable owners argue themselves away from the concept of risk.

I was just watching an episode of Flipping Vegas with my wife and laughing about the fake husband/wife drama and artificial renovation scenarios and numbers when I swore I heard the BiggerPockets podcast intro song during one of the scenes.

Needless to say that has artificially inflated prices for rental properties especially under $150k.So if you are looking to buy rentals- stay clear of the MLS and don't take recent sales comps at face value as a measure of ARVs; know expense calculations to know your true Net operating income; you will be surprised how it can often be way off than what most wholesales would have you believe.Let us know if we can assist in any way- our specialty is in providing data on finding & evaluating off-market deals.

The primary, if not only, reason there has been a brief spike in subsidized demand for housing in recent months (2012), has been the GSE/FHFA endorsed REO-To-Rental plan, and associated securitization conduits, in which large asset managers have been encouraged to take advantage of government funded, risk-free financing (and entirely bypassing banks who have given up on loan origination due to legacy liability issues which have every bank tied up in litigation from now until Feddom come - just see today's Bank of America results) and purchase foreclosed properties in bulk, with the intention of converting them into rental properties.http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-17/och-ziff-calls-top-reo-rental-exit-landlord-businessIt is no secret that in addition to the well-known phenomenon of "foreclosure stuffing", one of the primary drivers of the artificial housing "recovery" has been the surge of hedge funds and asset managers into purchases of rental units courtesy of near-zero cost REO-to-rent federal lending facilities, which have taken out distressed inventory from the market in hopes of converting it into rental.