If I were out in that side of the country, I'd jump at the chance to get coffee (I've never been a coffee fan, but I'm forcing myself to like it and get addicted, to curb my addiction of Peppermint Hot Chocolates from Starbucks... it's bad!)

I'm not a fan of HomeDepot or Lowes for appliances, but I will in a pinch

You'd be amazed how many people own a home they've either inherited or gotten themselves into a pinch and are motivated to sell with negotiable terms.  

That way you can have confidence that your properties are utilized to the maximum cash flow.PM's are like a box of chocolates, you bite into one and  you never know what you're going to get.

Kim:Kitty litter (the coarse pellet kind) will also work in a pinch ... for traction, it won't melt your ice.

As the market softens (and it will at some point), the owners of the buildings bought recently at less than 1% rents with 80% loans will feel the pinch.

To clarify, I was the buyer and my agent gifted me but I never saw the agents or heard that the agents exchanged or gifted one another.Btw, my gift was chocolates. :)

He also said that if he got in a pinch and needed some short term cash he could get a line of credit using the $100,000 CD as collateral. 

@Jose TovarI would check around, we wanted to speed up our process and were in a slight pinch with our DTI for conventional lending due to our volume of loans and pitched a bank model of construction financing with a higher interest rate to some of our private lenders and hard money lenders and are currently working our first build with private money this way. 

When I think of my goal for next year, to do $300-$400K flips, and I think of handing over $30K in fees and interest, not to mention the minor yet annoying pinches and slaps and whatever other surprises they'll think of by then, I know I have to find an alternative.