The latter part is really all we much cared about.But then we went and bought a house... gave her three months notice... and she has had plenty access to the house to inspect it and declared "no damages".But... it's been seven years so the landlord wants to replace the carpet, linolium, paint - which is all great for whomever is next......Except... she's bound and determined to have it done before we leave.

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS deal with a deliquent tenant ONLY when you have a court date...delaying filing the proper pay or quit and eviction court paperwork ONLY benefits the tenant.If you want to stay a landlord, get a good L-T attorney - NOT a real estate attorney - and follow what the attorney does and go to each and every court date so that you learn what to do and how to do it....most states are fairly easy and the court paperwork is available online...just learn the ropes so you are not so fearful and don't loose months of rent to a "professional" tenant in the future.

I think lending is loose -- what about all those "second homes" that are just accross the county line and "ride by appraisals" are the norm.

If you can not stand to loose some money you should not be geting into building spec homes. 4) As you seem to have no track record it will be tough to figure the total cost of a project... hence you will not know what your profit margin would be and what your downside could be if the market turned on you.The beaty of flipping is that once the place is renovated you can rent or sell.

There are bound to be some hard money lenders there.

I then did the rehab myself, working nearly every day in January, including weekends to get the property ready to rent.I use the term rehab fairly loosely in this case, because the rehab consisted of interior paint throughout, new carpet, fixing some plaster walls, new appliances, some minor DIY plumbing and electrical, and basica cleaning.

Yes there is information out there telling you where the demand is, but I don't think every college bound student looks for these and some of them get bitten HARD by reality when they get out of school.

4) How much do you have to put down on a typical project.5) Are there any things to look out for from a project bound to fail?

Always loose ends to tie up.

Is this an area where an LLC would have offered some protections as far as how much he can loose?