I just read 5 books (out of print, published between 1979 and 1986) all related to wealth building thru real estate “trading and exchanging” (not for tax free exchange).These were the most convoluted, confusing, and unfocused real estate books I ever read!

I totally agree, so many properties there are new and beautiful that there needs to be *something* to really stand outYou make a really good point re: no plan B, and in general I’ve seen the home values in that market depreciating (assuming because of the boom / growth in supply in the last couple years).I might be wrong here but I assumed that a general trade off between vacation market and metro areas would generally be that strs in vacation markets don’t really have a plan BI’m pretty split at the moment, but really appreciate your thoughts

We have an experienced, degreed designer on the team and we have "trade accounts" with vendors, so we'll often purchase the materials and appliances directly from the vendors and have the contractor pick them up to use on the job.

I'm a member of GaREIA, they have a google group where experienced local inveztors trade tested (and mostly reliable) contractors, legal helps, strategy.   

The trade off was you couldn't apply to a 4 year college but this was a way for kids to get the math credit they needed for a diploma. 

Trading is super stressful for sure.

Once you have that agent they will be in your corner the whole time, they will have connection to professionals in trades, they will have the experience to guide you through tough decisions and be your second set of eyes on every thing.   

The shortage exists for lots of reasons, but a lot has to do with lack of trades folks to do the work, which drives costs up, which creates "unaffordable" housing. 

I still have to work at this daily to get out of the blue collar mindset of trading time for money.

This also helped us in an unattended way when investing with my Solo 401k because banks treated the funds as liquid when invested in a public traded exchange versus in their fund and helped with securing better commercial financing on a deal because of the strength of our application in liquid assets.