However when the appraisal was done the house was listed as a 5 which is considered to be in below average condition.... perfect for the strategy I am going for however not so perfect for the somewhat cookie cutter loans that Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac are willing to purchase on the secondary market.

There are just so many factors to consider you can't put all deals into a cookie cutter sort of fashion.

Big banks like cookie cutter loans and they do them by the thousands, you dont fit in as an odd ball.

So think more cookie cutter, 2 to 3 bedroom SFR homes.

In the year 2003, the value of that house went up to $230k (the attached cookie cutter house sold for that much in that year).

My gut tells me to stick to more cookie-cutter stuff since it's lower risk, but I have a hunch that there's flip or wholetail profit to be made on these rarely-available lakefront homes.  

Bolt cutters can cut padlocks.

They came out again the second day (warrantied work within a week), and this time they went at it with the cutters. 

Note these are all going to be estimates.House 2 Granite Cost = $250 if my memory serves - then we got the second taste of our friendly granite cutters loss leader - they hit us with something like $450 for cutting. 

And even though you can “just” trim it with a box cutter as the packaging says, you’d be much better off using a circular saw or something similar.