Regardless, I love the enthusiasm and look forward to good ideas and bad (this one) :mrgreen: from everyone (except Tim).

Enough so that I just might make a field trip and reconsider my lack of enthusiasm for long-distance investments.Have a look at "The Millionaire Real Estate Investor" by Gary Keller.

If you take anything away from that book, take the drawings and the enthusiasm and find a good book that shows you the numbers and the options in the business.

Jeff by all means jump in the water, it's fine :mrgreen: just make sure you have your floaties on1st things 1st is if your new to the short sale arena I would maybe think about hiring a buyers agent to protect your enthusiasm.

I've never heard a real-estate investor talk about real-estate investing with such enthusiasm, energy, and love of the work like the Crocodile Hunter did about his "job".

Vasia, While I like the enthusiasm and the fact you are starting out much better off than many, I personally think you are being overly optimistic about how much you can save over 1-2 years. 72k after taxes, especially in California, is not a ton of money that would make it almost impossible to save 30k a year, especially as a young guy of 22 or 23.

Matthew,I enjoy your enthusiasm to learn.The FMV is ultimately determined by what someone is willing to pay for a property.

There comes this new found joy of simply living and your enthusiasm comes back, your passion blossoms like a warm fuzzy feeling inside of you, you feel joy again and that make all of the difference in the way you experience life and how you respond to it. 

It's a starter book, and you will become acquainted with concepts and terms while being inspired by Brandon's enthusiasm. 

The outcome shows that EquityBuild, in its enthusiasm for Chicago apartments, overpaid for the buildings, and by a wide margin: Four buyers have agreed to pay a combined $7.7 million for properties, about 33 percent less than the $11.5 million EquityBuild paid for them over the past few years, according to a court document.Yet the combined price is slightly higher than the $7.4 million that the properties were listed for.