This is what the story behind the story is.. if you can't get to the site:Me- "Hey can I buy a piece of bubble gum from you for $1.00?

Many of the older vinyl floor tiles and any associated paper-like backing, mastic, adhesive or glue, may contain asbestos.

That said, the liability of knowing about the presence of asbestos in the living area or HVAC system (ie in plaster or floor tiles, duct wrap/mastic), but not disclosing it could come back to bite you if something ever did occur.Much of our building stock is old here in the east - 1920s-1930s would be newer buildings in some neighbourhoods.  

I think the trend will swing back from renting and group psychology about "rising real estate values" will kick in just as it did 10-15 years ago.Yes I think we should keep buying to get more pieces on the board (boats in the water to rise), but completely disregard any potential appreciation both in terms of our return calculations and psychologically (in other words, don't get caught up in the coming "real estate boom" psychology and buy marginal properties or cash flow negative properties expecting appreciation).That may mean doing fewer deals but it's a price I'm personally willing to pay.There are also some broader economic issues which could throw in some systemic risk and gum up the works, such as Russia-Ukraine, the Chinese economy, the European economy (and some of its weaker members like Greece), etc.So in my mind I think there are three possible scenarios: 1) 1/3 likely to have steady good growth in RE values (scenario of U.S. economy continuing to do reasonably well but little/tepid real wage growth), 2) 1/3 likely to have another boom (scenario of U.S. economy doing very well and finally having real wage growth for the first time in a long time), and 3) 1/3 likely to have the train get derailed by external factors such as the world economy, some kind of war, etc.In all of those scenarios it seems to me that good, cash flowing properties will be good to have.

This is not about gum vs REI as much as thinking in terms of business returns overall.

So I tried removing some of the mastic and glue with Citristrip last night.

That would unnecessarily gum up the works in consumer transactions.If you wanted confidentiality, you should have instructed the appraiser of that before he/she took the job.

The fact is that referrals here would be no better than google and would tend to gum up the works so to speak so we would not really be adding value by allowing them. 

Mastic" is a generic term for an adhesive.

I would bet that block was tarred with a waterproof mastic coating before the ground was backfilled around it.