Today is my first day and I found wealth of information on REO's, that's just awesome.I liked some of the comments made about not being emotinally attached to the properties and would definitely contribute to my metality of looking at buying real estate, not as an investment alone but as a business.

Also scrap metal HMS1&2 and rails and cement are great trades right now.

I put metal carpet trim over the doorways and nailed it down to hold the edges firmly in place.

Cheap and easy, use the pressed wood cheap stuff to save 50 pct. dunno whats wrong with your ceiling that you want it torn out, but theres cardboard, metal, and textured ceiling tile looking wallpaper alternatives to simply cover the flaws. 15+ cents a sf for textured ceiling tile wallpaper DIY, .50 to 1 an sf for armstrong cardboard diy, up to $50 an sf not installed for copper tiles.

In a real crisis a loaf of bread is worth more than any precious metal because, after all, you can’t eat gold. 8)

Take it to a metal recycling place.

I also thing owning physical precious metals is a good investment long term.

Thanks Mike, I took a look, Tiny Texas designs remind me of the old Frontierland at Disneyland, a real wild west feel with the corrugated metal roofs and the interiors.

That does not sound ready to crash to me, based on historical patterns for the yellow metal.

Thirdly, a 20% of gross rents factor for maintenance and vacancy is only accurate if 1) the property is FULLY stablized (new roof, new furnace, new windows, and so on)--and most of the TKRs I've seen do NOT meet this standard by a long shot, 2) if the property is VERY aggressively managed--heavy screening, prompt eviction, quick re-rent--a practice not common amongst most property managers, and 3) aggressive maintenance is done to maintain the capital repair items (changing furnace filters bi-monthly, cleaning gutters in the fall to avoid failure, maintaining metal roofs, cutting back trees to avoid roof damage, etc--again, uncommon amongst property managers).