Most agents (not all) really rely heavily on their friends and family for the first few sales in the first year.

I invest heavily in RI and would highly recommend engaging with a quality attorney that knows the local ordinances. 

These towns have focused heavily in defining themselves as towns, have low taxes, and you get a lot more for your money in those areas. 

Most of the markets in Texas are heavily inflated due to the recent influx of people moving to the state making it very hard to find "deals".  

After discovering BP, i really want to lean more heavily into real estate investing (currently own a condo and house in Portland, Oregon but realized i should broaden my search).

And add in the expense of removing the kitchen, and possibly the bath to remove the violation.You know why this seller has invested heavily in PA? 

Now the normalized rate is used for qualification purposes, so it's never done.In theory you might have someone at a 20% DTI who would prefer to be at a 15% DTI for that first couple years, but IRL people at 20% DTI are those very same people who can just do the math to realize that this heavily favors the bank, and such a person (who could qualify either way) would never do it.I certainly applaud that you're looking into wonky guideline provisions and how you might hack a glitch in the matrix, but this is the wrong glitch to be trying to hack, unless your time machine allows you to travel to 2005. :)The closest to this that now exists, for the cash heavy but income modest, is buying out the PMI upfront on a conventional mortgage, rather than ever making a monthly PMI payment.

That may work in Texas where that is a way of life but in most of the rest of the country, the asset manager actually has to do some work and tell the contractor what improvements to make.If you're new to the game, I recommend you read everything you can find by Dave Lindahl and Ken Mcelroy.And it also depends heavily on the property you are working on.But here are the basics.First, fix up the exterior.

I was also heavily deployed, for long periods of time (30 months deployed in the first 48 months of service), making me feel that I wouldn't be able to manage property investments while gone. 

Option 1: New utility meter ---> Cost will heavily depend on the configuration of your existing gas lines.