If you are borrowing money, you are going to be using equity of some sort.

Ideally, you know every cabinet placement, tile selection, etc when you meet the contractor for bids.  

Finishes were selected a couple weeks ago.

It's sort of going backwards from owning your real estate. 

Title might be confusing, I'm asking for help or input on what other people have found success doing, not claiming to have any sort of sound strategy myself!!

It is generally a C class area and mine is in the sort of C+ section. 

I suspect the disclosure language will follow.. and CE  or training is a good idea but that would probably be step 2.Oregon can be pretty funny when it comes to laws and regs.For instance in the logging industry.. there are all sorts of environmental laws of course and as a logger your expected to know them..

They can take time with their search and be more selective about a property’s location and condition.

I'm not pondering should you or shouldn't ya, I think your more then capable of sorting that out for yourself, I'm just gonna stick to what stands out to me as best "how-to". 

That's all the 1% rule does, is help you sort out what MIGHT be a deal with analyzing and ignoring the rest.