As far as areas to avoid, generally you want to stay away from anything south of I-30, except for the Bishop Arts/Oak Cliff area southwest of downtown.

If that fails, I guess my only option is to simply call their bluff.

Three of my current rentals are in Royal Oak, and the other two are in Macomb county.

I currently reside in the Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks area within Ventura County, CA.

I will be moving in, applying some lipstick, and then renting out the two bedroom unit.A little bit about myself: - I work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and I have been learning, searching, and saving money for years with which I finally pulled the trigger and invested in real estate. - My one "key" to success on how I was personally able to invest at 22 years old is.... peanut butter crackers.

The labor alone to manufacture your own flooring, who knows, I guess it depends on how good you are and if you have all the equipment and time.I just installed a oak solid wood prefinished floor for $2.25 a sq foot.I feel time is better spent looking for a closeout, or looking on craigs list until you find what you want.

We own a 2/1 recently renovated single family home in Red Bluff CA.

We've also used the oak and I like that a little better as it seems to hide dirt better than the cherry which is darker.Gail

I live in Royal Oak and would love to buy there, but the market's too hot in this area and price vs cashflow isn't attractive to me. 

I’ve been a member of biggerpockets for a while but I will admit that I don’t do a lot of posting and I don’t troll the forums much since I don’t have a lot of time working a full time job and rehabbing my current home but I have been listen to all the great podcasts.BTW, sweat equity really pays off, I gained 48K in just 2 years.But mainly it helped that I bought it as a shortsale just before the market started to come back up again, but that’s a whole other story in itself.So I’ve been trying to get into the investment side of things for the last few years and something always happens, outbid, too much work, foundation or structural issues, priced out of my range, not able to get enough financing through the bank and the list goes on and on.So I would like to get some info on hard money lenders and if there is one that is even reading this maybe they would want a joint or partnership or do just a straight out loan for 6 or 8 months and then I can do a refi but mainly I’m just throwing this out here to get some feedback to see if it’s even worth it.There is development of about 20 duplexes about 25 mins from my house, Roughly 10 years old.These are huge, each unit is a 3/2 and most of them have a single and a double garage but a few of them have a 2 stall for each side.Real hardwood floors, oak cabinets, vaulted ceiling and such.I’ve been following rental rates in that area and they seem to be solid since I’ve only seen one get listed at 1,400 per month.Tenant pays for all their own utils except for water.Last year one of the duplexes was listed for just a little over 250K and sold within a month.A few months ago, one of them came up on the market for 180K and I asked my agent.She did some digging and found out that the basement was flooded and it all has to be taken out, carpet, studs and drywall.