I think he ended up spending 30-40k for the fire suppression system, windows, and whatever else the city required... and I'm not even sure this is possible anymore, since I think Union City's program is not going on anymore, and, in general, they require showing off-street parking.I'm uncertain if the economics will make sense for you, although I'm not sure what JC may require or how your basement looks now.

I try not to overdo it, but I also don't want to spend 30 minutes typing it fresh when it's literally asked every. single. day.

Stop hanging out with your deadbeat buddies who spend all day drinking, talking sports, and otherwise wasting away.

Spend your time on your contracts, insurance, and operations.Contracts-  copy, borrow from someone else as a starting point.  

Real estate, by default, is passive and the primary way to avoid the passive loss rules is to qualify as a real estate professional.Full-time employees and non-real estate business owners cannot qualify as a real estate professional (aka REPS status) because one of the tests is to spend more time in real estate than anything else (and it’s unlikely that you can convince the IRS or Tax Court that you spent more time in RE than your day job).

It is much more efficient to spend some time up front to really understand the market.

Cleveland is still one of the poorest cities in America with a median income of around $37K per household!

Using your own funds to pay down your loan so you get a bigger loan sounds like a zero sum gain (aka IE using 1 dollar to pay down loan so you can net 1 more dollar from the new proposed loan) So how are you going to net more cash when spending 1 dollar to get another 1 dollar ?

I spend half the year in Indonesia where me and my wife rent a home.  

If I had $10 for marketing, I would spend $9 on the lead list and $1 on some tool to do something with those leads.