It has proved fruitful and it's also a great tool, but I prefer the HELOC overall because in a cash out refi, there's additional closing costs (more than a HELOC), and there's more scrutiny to getting that cash.

Added bonus; all those classes usually count towards a RE license, so I got one of those with little effort.In my experience, the tougher path usually yields the best fruit.

Others have mentioned "signals" that help identify low hanging fruit (e.g., no online presence and w/in 5 miles of superwalmart), but I'm still wondering if their is an intermediary stage in financial analysis before digging into the expenses.

The trades are gaining popularity again and will be very fruitful in the future for those that go that path.

In this type of situation the investor may not see much juice left in the asset. 

Jonathan Twombly I think that many folks see no immediate returns on their efforts, so the level of effort diminishes over time, and we lose out on the critical mass that is needed to really begin to see the fruits of our labor (and efforts) start to show themselves in marketing and RE investing as a whole...so the point about consistently feeding the machine is a big one.

If the seller is currently managing it himself, and not taking pay, it will juice the NOI, but a bank will take it back out.

Anybody have idea's to help me get the creative juices flowing on creating an environment where I can get attorneys receptive to helping me by finding a way to articulate helping them?

Commercial property is nice you can get your creative juices flowing in your brain to add cashflow

My wife @Leanna West and I just closed on our first investment property (photo below) and I are riding the high of finally seeing the fruits of our hard work and feeling like we’re living into the mindset of being “real estate investors”.