Marginal business practices, bending rules, short cuts... all caught up with him and those (generally) who were not a "quality mentor" or a "quality trainer".

Looking to put the equity (guessing at least $300K, we've replaced most everything in our house at this point) to work and get an actual investment property. 

Shortcut your learning curve by learning from experienced players who do what you want to do. 2.)

It boils down to teaching them about grit, hard work and that they need to earn it.

I will definitely put your suggestions to work and investigate multifamily house rentals here in MA. 

Would take some work and $ but may be worth it.

Keep up the great work, and look forward to hearing more about your journey!

I did pay him $30,000 after a week of work and understand that I owe him more, regardless of how poor the quality of his work was.

Many things go wrong in construction, some of which are unavoidable, how the contractor handles those issues is paramount and speaks volumes to their abilities (or lack there of in the cases above).There are no short cuts to construction or dealing with the building and safety/planning departments in cities, they are slower than turtles in almost all cases.

We love Shasta and I’ve been visiting there since I was a kid with my family so I figure if I’m going to add more work and responsibilities to our lives at least we can do it in a place we love to visit.