My wife and I recently bought a duplex for $46k that we moved into and put about $10k (and a lot of sweat equity) into for rehab.

That said, there are many ways you can use real estate to accelerate your business.Consider the following real estate business strategies:- Buy-and-hold: Use your own money to build a cash flowing portfolio- Fix-and-flip: Use your own money to buy, fix, and sell assets- Wholesaling: Find assets, put them under contract, and sell/assign the right to buy while you keep the spread between the contract and sale prices- Brokerage: Connect buyers and sellers and make a commission on the sale- Investment management: Use your experience to arrange deals and manage them for passive investors - you make money on fees and sweat equity (carried interest or promote)This is a high-level selection of strategies.

It's just waaayyy too big of a hassle to sweat UBIT every year.Hope your arm has healed up, brother!

The bank will use the receipts and labor cost (no sweat equity credit given.. so company invoices :cool: ) plus the purchase price to justify the increase in value.

I would not sweat the legalities as long as the unit is legal.

So, don't sweat it.

@Gibson BeusI read a cool Japanese proverb the other day-“A spoonful of sweat can save a bucket full of blood”See, told ya it was cool. 

I like to think of out of state investing as simply one less advantage that a local investor has, but you can make up that ground and more with some additional effort/sweat equity.

And by being as ugly as possible, lends sweat equity which gives chance to create equity and maximum learning potential.

FInd a place you can add some sweat equity, live in for some time, and get some help with covering the mortgage (or maybe even be able to cover all of it!).