Andrew Jones You paint the entire Midwest with a wide brush, a common mistake I see from investors who refuse to believe there are areas with appreciation and strong economies there.

Suppose what I'm saying is I would give land deals wide berth at around 60 to 90 days to close.  

@Joseph Weisenbloom... you had mentioned that fully rehabbed properties are going for $200K to $325K... that's a really wide range.If it is on the lower end of that and you'd need to pay real estate commissions when selling that's a much harder decision than toward the top end of that range.For example, if your costs of sale are 7% (which I don't know if that is normal in your market or not) and a sale price of $200K that's $14K in cost of sale plus whatever you need to put into the property to sell it.

I would make sure they knew as much about the deal as you do, and that they go in with eyes wide open to the risks.

The place I'm looking at is a double-wide and has a brick 1/2 front facade and a two room addition.

I think with the market the way it is, and it seems to be nation wide, I want to move more into helping people that are facing foreclosures on their homes.

The best part about this is that now that the rest of the country is hurting just as bad, the banks are feeling the pinch corp wide and have to let these REO's go cheap.

From what I have read though if you employ solar and wind power generators then you are pretty much set, because if its not sunny then its likely stormy which means more wind :)Basically the civilization systems include everything you need to live a civilized life on an island, are completely self sufficient (you could remove the generator if you didn't mind the occasional black out), and again not as expensive as one would think, especially with the "go green" attitude really coming into play now a days, you may even start to see these kinds of systems becoming available to the rural population, and as economics dictates, the more widely available something becomes, the lower the price tends to be.Just thought I would throw what I know about islands out there for everyone.

*points to corner*Now lets git on that new fangled world wide web, and do us some searchin'!

Currently mentor to over 100 nation wide students whom target local clean notes and we market them back to the buyers at discounted prices.