While I'm new to this arena I work hard and learn harder and have a good ability to remain in the present and make rational decisions based off of others' fear and greed. 

I know that in my bunker I have rations that will last me for months so I can survive the zombie attack.I have my armored car with my rocket launcher sitting on top.

The investor goes out to the property and rationalizes and visualizes what changes and repairs should take place and then the contractors draws up an estimate matching the request and wham the numbers don't add up and now the investor is stressed.

way to stick with it @Valerie Reed and thanks for posting because there's a lot of us trying to rationalize some deals that look to make sense on paper but don't follow some or all of the rules of thumb... for us newbies who don't fully understand the details can research and read until we it hurts but the truth is we won't fully understand till a small leap of faith is made and learn for ourselves.  

So my question is 'When the ration gets out of balance what 3-5 things do you, as an experienced investor, look at to see what needs to be fixed?'

Net listings, in most all states are illegal and/or consider unethical dealing as compensation is lost equity.Back more on topic, most licensees find that disclosure of their license status is an issue, I don't think it is at all and can be an asset if you take an approach to inform and educate an owner, gain confidence and justify your offer as being reasonable and the owner may well act rationally.

Just because a ration exists doesn't mean it's applicable to the matter at hand.

I don't buy individual stocks, and I don't think the stock market is rational (nor do I think the real estate market is).

but there could be a hard money person out there who is more understanding of you're LTV rational than a bank would be.

Some grads are unaware that student loans can create a high debt-to-income ration, which in turn can remove you from FHA loan eligibility.For more info: https://www.mortgageloan.com/getting-fha-mortgage-...http://www.fha.com/fha_requirements_debt