Always looking for the diamond in the rough.

It's another thing to find a 5 karat diamond ring.  

We aren't tiling directly onto drywall either, we use the diamond back tile board for the walls, and we have a layer of roll on red seal on top of that to provide added water resistance.Fortunately I arrived in time to see the tile being applied on the waterproofed walls.

get creative with down payments ( ask if they have something to trade with ,could be anything , boat ; car ;      gold ;diamonds ; plane ; IRA ; anything )2. you will get to raise the price when you do this .3.  

I have a great job selling diamonds and jewelry, so I don't plan to ditch that in favor of full time real estate investing, but I would definitely like to do more real estate on the side than I have been doing. 

I've attended and can recommend Black Diamond REI for Massachusetts and RIREIG for Rhode Island.Good luck, and of course feel free to post any specific questions you come up with along the way, here on BP :)

@Raymond Lewis I can also recommend the Black Diamond REI group as one that is education oriented, doesn't try to sell you things, and great for networking.

I will use the analogy of skiing - if you have never been skiing it's not recommended to start on the black diamonds.

Since we couldn't find a move-in place, we started wondering about the REO/Foreclosure market to find a diamond in the rough property, but don't really know where to get started should we decide to just turn it into investment property and move forward with doing more property stuff on the side of our other jobs.Our stats:Me - age 41 - annual income from W2 job around $130k and only debts are $38k student loans and $22k unsecured car loanWife - age 29 - works FT from home - annual revenue between $55-75k and growing year/year. only debt is $19k student loans.We're behind on retirement (I have about $75k between 401k and ROTH and wife has less than $10k in SEP and old 401k) due to my only other home ownership from my first wife where she filed CH7 BK and left me with the house in 2005.

Its not like it can just call up and say "hey your sitting on a diamond incrusted gold mine.