This particular store is a "plus" selling beer and wine so there is a distinguishing factor plus this store is only a few years old and the building is over 12,000 SF.

The law exists to protect the public from predatory behavior, not to prevent them from voicing their experience or opinion.The Virginia Supreme Court defines the "practice of law" as: One is deemed to be practicing law whenever.(1) One undertakes for compensation, direct or indirect, to advise another not his regular employer, in any matter involving the application of legal principles to facts or purposes or desires.(2) One, other than as a regular employee acting for his employer, undertakes, with or without compensation, to prepare for another legal instruments of any character, other than notices or contract incident to regular course of conducting a licensed business(3) One undertakes, with or without compensation, to represent the interest of another before [a tribunal, as hereinafter defined in UPC 1-1,] otherwise than in the presentation of facts, figures, or factual conclusions, as distinguished from legal conclusions, by an employee regularly Ö employed on a salary basis, or by one specially employed as an expert in respect to such facts and figures when such presentation by such employee or expert does not involve the examination of witnesses or preparation of pleadings.Virginia UPL Opinion 48. http://www.vsb.org/site/regulation/virginia-upl-opinion-48So, don't advise people on the law for money, don't prepare legal documents and don't attempt to represent people in courts or tribunals in Virginia without a license and you're not breaking any laws.Indeed, the very purpose of this community is to advise each other.

ThanksWhen operating at a company level, as a business, I feel it is important to condition oneself to no longer look at properties as individual properties but to view them as units, as a product.

On the one hand we have buyers of new (or replacement) houses who must have loans in order to buy the home they want.In qualifying for the new homes, they must somehow dispose of their old houses.When money is "tight", the sale market slows down, placing both the builders (and their lenders) and the buyers (who must first sell their existing residences in order to qualify for a loan) into a quandary.At the same time, a portion of the market (investor/speculators) willing to absorb the surplus houses is prevented from doing so because of the same shortage of mortgage funding.The solution lies in creative financing techniques.Read on.The following pages address themselves to this parallel dilemma of the market, the builders, the lenders, the buyers, the sellers, investors and speculators.For the agile investor, CommonWealth Letters have a slogan: "THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THERE IS BAD NEWS".In so many words, what that means is that in tough times, when credit has dried up the markets, only those who have cultivated buying, selling, fixing, management, negotiating, and financing skills survive and prosper, but, when we have prosperity in the United States, it is possible for ANYONE to succeed.Our markets are so vast, our citizens so affluent, our institutions so liberal, that practically every form of commercial activity has a theoretical and statistical chance to succeed.The problem with that scenario is that good times cause millions of would-be entrepreneurs to enter the market place.Success becomes a very competitive venture in which those with true ability are virtually in-distinguishable from those without the skills and knowledge normally required as a prerequisite to prosperity.Thus, our endeavors receive only average returns even though we might be able to contribute above average talent, energy, drive, capital, and imagination.One of the principal reasons for this is that venture capital abounds in good times.Lenders woo the untried, unskilled, untalented in an effort to place the ever increasing funds deposited within their coffers.Interest rates fall as money chases borrowers.The costs of doing business are reduced correspondingly as the cost of money falls, (then they are raised again as the costs of labor and materials escalate to meet increased demand).The ebb and flow of money and production instills a cyclical rhythm into the economy; and just as Winter follows Summer, so must hard times follow the good.In hard times, the reverse of the above holds true.Slowing economic activity causes businesses to retrench.The faint of heart drop out, others cut back on costs, materials, and labor.They slow down their payments to the banks.They with-draw surplus funds to meet current expenses.Bankers, seeing their reserves beginning to diminish, are faced with increasing loan demand from borrowers who foresee less and less certain profits with which to repay them.Interest rates are increased to meet market demand for money.Loan terms are stiffened to discount increasing risks.Money becomes tighter and tighter.Now many of us who have been waiting on the sidelines begin to see opportunities.Those builders who need buyers, those buyers who need new homes, those speculators who are stretched thin with negative cash flows; throngs of those who knew how to prosper during times of business expansion become listless and drift during periods of contraction.Our opportunity derives its strength and vitality from our being able to function in the market place without reliance on any financial institutions.Our competitors, who in prosperity were able to divert many opportunities to themselves, swiftly find themselves "on the ropes" when their lines of credit are withdrawn, because the key to their vigor was easy credit.Without readily available financing, they become ineffective.Phrased another way, those who choose to depend solely upon institutional financing will always find themselves trying to make a profit in a competitive market situation.They will be "in-phase" with millions of others, condemned to mediocre success, dependent upon good times to afford them enough of a living to be able to weather the slow periods.On the other hand, THOSE OF US WHO LEARN HOW TO PROSPER DURING HARD TIMES, WITHOUT THE HELP OF THE BANKERS, WILL BE ABLE TO OPERATE IN A NON-COMPETITIVE, PROFITABLE ENVIRONMENT.

So determining the value of time versus the value of say doing the work oneself in an active investment. 

I wanted to know if anyone can recommend a way to pay a contractor that doesn't accept credit cards with a credit card to protect oneself from being ripped off.

I feel the only way to success would really be to devote oneself to the altruistic intent of the Opportunity Zones program by making meaningful connections to the community and learning what the biggest needs are, finding sponsors or organizations willing to run a business for profit or non-profit that would really be accepted and welcomed by the community.

There is no magic in real estate investing, it takes the same kind of discipline, hardwork, and intelligence as any other business.Thank You.So true...it takes discipline and one needs to believe they can do it.Real estate is no different from other asset classesFrom selling oneself as a buyer/seller, financing, problem solving etc...its all hardwork to build the business and portfolio 

To excuse oneself from being a decent human being.

In the former statement/world, a person would feel that accountability, which leads to the natural question of "what can I do to afford a home", which empowers self-action, maybe improving oneself, to achieve that desire.