Particularly as the number of loans you're working with increases.I'm a big believer in taking care of the pennies first.

Unless you are dealing with a very substantial project, 5 years is a quite a ways for most contractors.

the only times i can think of justifying an interest only loan would be for a quick turnaround (hard money loan for a rehab), or if you were GUARANTEED to have substantial appreciation.

There has been substantial growth in the last 5-6 years, but part of that is sort of false: Builders had been building, and bussing investors in from other parts of the country to sell their fine new houses to, either for second homes or for rentals.

Although you have to work odd hours to convenience clients, you also have flexibility in taking time for yourself when you likely would not be able to if you were working a typical 9-5.

Sometimes you'll hear appraisers refer to this as 'effective age' as in 'the effective age of the 40 year old house is substantially less than the 30 yr. old house due to substantial renovation'.

You need to dive in, take a few lumps and get some education from the school of hard knocks!

Did he pay a substantial amount of back taxes owed by the prior owner?

Get their contact information and say to them if you run across something like what they are looking for would they be interested in taking a look at it.

Having 10 properties where each property is worth a million is different than having 10 that have 50k in equity.Business owners that have a substantial personal net worth will separate their business liability from their personal assets using entities.