She suggested she might have to add the ex to title before closing. 

But for consistent rental income, most investors stick with C or C+ areas.You’re probably wondering, “What exactly are the C/C+ neighborhoods?”

I would suggest looking in Columbus Ohio for so many reasons - population growth, job growth, and companies moving here.

My parents have finished paying off the mortgage on their home and are wondering weather it would be more profitable to sell their home or rent it out. 

Hello Derick, If you have not already done this, I suggest the Build Your Investing Team> menu/link at the top left of the page on Bigger Pockets and go through the process of building a team.

If you’re serious about buying properties and doing real estate, then I would suggest working with the CPA that understands real estate even if the services cost more than your average H&R Block or some TurboTax program you can buy.

I wonder if Mitch was able to get his refi done before a NOD was filed and or late payments were put on the orginal sellers credit report.. this is the real risk to the seller if they value their fico score at all.. on some of this stuff the sellers credit is already trashed and they dont care.. but if folks buy from someone that does care holy cow when they get the NOD notice its right to the attorney.. 

Looking for thoughts and suggestions on how to utilize these new funds for real estate investing.

You could also get a line of credit for about $150k (you should be able to borrow 75% of the value.)The reason I suggest this is…1) you save $40-$60k in selling costs. 2) you have a lower blended interest rate (2/3rds at 3.25% and 1/3rd at 7 or 8% instead of the whole $500k at 7 or 8%) saving you another $1k/mo in interest. 3) you only pay interest on that $150k when you actually use it, not from day 1  Unless you hate this property, or want to buy something you can’t afford without selling, that would be my plan.

This is after all construction in Los Angeles, if you've never done it before add 50k.If you have $500,000 in cash I suggest you use it elsewhere, this years long headache is likely not worth the 1000's of man hours you will also have to put into it running your very own team of scientists.