In the interest of connecting with agents here, my interested markets are:Bloomington-Normal, ILCrescent City, CAColombus, GALouisville, KYSavannah, GA Peoria, ILMilwaukee, WI

With $250k I would look at these neighborhoods: Normal Station, Audubon Park, Colonial Acres Sea Isle Park, and  Bartlett TN.

Normally that tax is split between buyer and seller but since its an auction the buyer pays it ALL. b.

Ok, I see its normal to ask those who came to showings why they didn't apply.

That will change in 2H25 in a lot of markets.Expenses:  Leveling off and must be accepted as the new normal. 

Normal repairs are absolutely NOT covered by insurance.

To me, renting an apartment or a "normal house" would cost more and I'm ATLEAST getting rent towards ownership/equity.

For example, I have a private lender that gives me 8-9% on the rate for rehab costs when I am usually getting about 10.25-11.25% on the rehab costs from hard money lenders, and the HML is not sending the full money upfront, but in draws (this is normal for most HML) which is a lot more cumbersome. 

Yeah, it's a very normalized thing. 

Some old Milwaukee sewer laterals have tree roots that like catch on to stuff.We also eliminate garbage disposals during rehab and normally we have someone from our team check out issues, before we send a plumber.