My suggestion to people is if you go for a variance, swing for the fences because there is a lot of red tape that adds up fast and gets stressful. 

Their management companies tend be to be very unresponsive and given th red tape that is involved in everything they do, it will take a lot more time and money to get them to accept to do it your way.

A lender willing to loan up to 80% of the “as complete” value sounds uncommon to me, I would love to do that on a project that I found in a hot area with a 14-unit package of 5 plexes and a 4 plex for sale at about 40% of ARV.It's similar to the method used in a 203k but without the excessive amount of red tape.

I can hook you up with a load of rock if you let us tape it and laugh.

A metal roof has 40-70 year useful life compared to 30 years for asphalt shingles. 

Historical properties have a lot of red tape.

Debra, you can buy and read a lot of books, buy and listen to a lot of tapes and DVDs and go to seminars and listen to gurus ... all in all spend a lot of money and waste a lot of time ...ORyou can spend some time here on Bigger Pockets and read a lot of the threads and blog posts and interact with the members ...for the wonderful price of FREE.I encourage you to go Pro on here eventually.Welcome.

Less than 1% actually get it exactly right, but you always hear about them because they then think they are a GURU because they got lucky and start selling books, tapes and seminars.So just look at the investment IN THE PRESENT.

i am a huge supporter of small, local banks...if you use a commercial banker at a community bank where they keep the loans in house, you won't ever have to worry about the conventional guidelines, all the red tape, and a clueless broker checking with the underwriter--you talk direclty to the decision maker!!

No tax returns, no bank statement examinations, no lengthy bank red tape to block you from a deal that makes sense.