I am saying it is pretty easy to weed out the ‘bad apples’ by simply looking at the quality of pictures, amenities, the verbiage of the description, and reviews.

Maybe you can help me analyze this better with the pictures  and description.

Do you assume that X property will be sold basing on what other properties has been sold in that same neighborhood with the same descriptions?

There are also some matters that can be handled by attorneys who are not local, so I wouldn't necessarily box myself into a geographical corner unless the matter demands it.

Not many lenders which actually go to 10 conventional and those that do will likely have caps on the maximum aggregate loan amount, geographic proximity of properties, etc.

Also, if you are not geographically limited, you can try to match up your talent/interests with an area that offers a more reasonable cost of living. $400k housing and $9k in taxes annual, plus the utility costs there, don't really make Vermont that attractive from a financial point of view (which is too bad because it's a beautiful state).

:If truly all it needs is a new roof to be complete and ready to sell then a few ideas off the top of my head could be:1)  Borrow the money from friends or family to replace the roof2)  Put the cost of the roof on a no/low interest credit card and pay it off as soon as the house sells3)  Go through a home improvement store (like Home Depot) that offers financing for larger projects like roof replacement4)  Don't replace the roof and just lower your sales price or offer the buyers a credit to fix it themselves after closing I didn't think about going through a home improvement store for financing like that and I actually listed it about 45 days and put within the description I will replace the roof with any accepted offer.

Real estate is geographically locked and can easily face economic obsolescence overtime.... and also much more expensive and harder to diversifyI am heavily invested in real estate but the 100 year historical data available for the stock market is a lot more reassuring for its long term stability then any sort of data available for real estate.  

I’m typically operating in a specific geographical location so taxes are always with in a range that is completely corolatted with price.

The description of this forum includes "put/call options" as they apply to real estate investing.