Ideally, my dream is to have a condo in my favorite neighborhood of Chicago (Lake View).I'm 24 years old.

I always viewed it as "who cares how much money I put down", I plan to pay them all of before I retire as part of my ultimate strategy anyways. 

Again even if you have great credit as you start to add more credit cards, mortgages, auto loans to your credit you can also be viewed as "High risk" due to Excessive trade lines in credit or higher DTI - debt to income ratios. 

So in my view, the value of the land is what comparable raw land is going for, less the costs that will be incurred to get to the raw land. 

I am going to see if I can switch to a local Wisconsin insurance that reflects our local risk level in their premiums.Many of the homes in the Pacific Palisades are 3-5 million, but when you look on Google Street View, most are very modest homes from the 1960s (there are some $20m ultra luxury mansions too), so a lot is the land value, the home replacement value on a 1600sqft may be what - 500k at the most?

Figure out a question set that helps dive into their expertise as investor-friendly agents, ask about their experience in the investment real estate space, and have them send you a few properties that could meet your goals to show that they can provide quality properties for your to analyze (hint: this is also good to see if they overpromised on their market [ex - Raleigh for cash flow]).Also with the new lawsuit, any agent that knows what they're doing will require you to sign an agency agreement prior to viewing a home.

If you don't foresee any major obstacles to qualification, I'd be happy to set up a viewing for you.

I'd like the building to be within 10 minutes walking distance from a Brown Line L stop, ideally in Lake View, North Center, or Ravenswood.

Just $800 today for the dozer totally stepped up the view of this property.  

U only have to be burned once when title comes back 3 days before closing ( which can be very common in abstractor  states ) only to find it title is buggered.. title companies and closing attorneis may have their process's but a good agent just lets them know this is how escrow is going to flow.. they will wine but it cost 200.00 for a title search and we dont want to spend that until we know we have a closing.