I've also lived in Houghton while going to Michigan Tech, lived in Iron Mountain for a few years, and traveled all over the UP for work.

They know that some years they’ll have a profit and others they’ll have a loss.I can tell from your writing that you’re a pretty smart guy so allow me to be ironic without being disrespectful.

Ironically, I was reading forums on how to find an investor friendly real estate agent.

Ironically since HELOC rates are based off of prime, they're actually far less crazy than fixed rates right now, and still have a long way to catch up before they get up to where fixed rates are.Through all of this prime has actually only risen by 0.25. 

For example cast iron parts vs today with stamped tin. 

Keep working on building your credit, saving money, and iron out your business plan and strategy so that lenders view you as an attractive investment. 

Apparently it wasn't difficult to do so since the iron cage it was supposed to be "safe" in was so flimsy I could lift it off the ground. 

The ironic part of this is that the most successful people have a long list of failures.

The second and third floors, we tapped into the existing piping and cast iron radiators located in their units from the basement.We eliminated as much cast iron and copper we could from the basement and replaced it with Trac pipe for the gas supply and PEX for all the supply and return lines.After Pictures of Boilers and Water Tanks:I spent about $9-10k in just material and about ~$3k in labor.

If you've got more iron clad math on a turnover and vacancy being much cheaper, you can consider the other option but good long-term tenants aren't easy to find :).