@James Loffredo you could do the bulk with IKEA furniture but supplement strategically, whether with furniture or accessories/decorative items that you pick up from vintage stores or at garage sales.

Mobile has good and bad areas but also it’s close to A Lot of places like New Orleans, Pensacola, Gulf Shores (a secret gem of the south).  

I've read about 203(k) loans, and they seem like a good place for a newbie like me to start.I wanted to get the community's opinion of 203(k) loans (pros, cons, traps, hidden gems), and also to ask how I might go about approaching the owner with an offer?

Airforce museum is indeed one of the gems in Dayton!  

Then it's becoming a master of quickly sifting and filtering through all the garbage to find the gems. 

I definitely recommend reading as much as you can in multiple genres/categories (especially leadership and personal growth...Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink was insanely impactful for me), and you'll be amazed at what gems you're able to pick up from even non-finance/non-real estate investing books. 

Great location, seems like a gem that will need sweat equity.

Your LL was a gem and did all he could.

I walked the neighborhood during the 2008 recession and realized this house was a short sale gem during a time when nobody was buying homes.

Last, I learned that if you buy a C vintage property (for example, built in 1960), but if you remodel the property to the studs in 2022 and update everything, including the wiring and plumbing, the right insurance company will use 2022 as the new year built which will give you better and less costly insurance coverage.