Over the course of a year, my wife and I fixed it up, rented to friends, ate peanut butter and jelly, and did everything we could.

Hi Chris,When your Father was 18 in 1985, adjusted for inflation that windfall would be about $38,000.Inflation just recently ate up 10% and will probably eat up even more (and I remember when the US Government was sending money out to people freely which is the opposite of inflation, but that was a unique time and  we are not likely to see that ever happen again--so I'm not really looking at that).Where I'm going with this, is do you and your Father believe given say another 35 years, you and he could turn $38,000 into $100,000 (well $100k into whatever inflation adjustment comes out to be)?

I keep hearing raw materials ate still expensive or hard to get right now.

No one bought new trucks, or ate out, or had their hair styled or nails done. 

Eventually her negativity ate away at the marriage, fear of money (and lack thereof) CONSTANTLY caused problems, and it became more and more clear that in her world there was no place for my big ideas.Marriage is a partnership. 

That's a very poor way to value a property for a purchase, but you need to ask the assessor what appraisal method they use, most do not use a market value approach.Assessors really don't have the ability to look at each property, they use a "Block Appraisal) that looks ate average prices by the sq. ft. in an area and the type of property.

The deals I was sorry about where the ones that ate the most personal time.  2nd set of deals I was sorry for where the ones that ate the most cash.  

It is a business if you ate actively managing it.

@Thomas HaregotI'm a big fan of league city ( though it sounds like you ate going after Houston properties ).

On one house I have they left the trusses alone, but ate away all the 1X3 ceiling furring strips nailed to the bottom of the trusses, turned them into swiss cheese i can crunch with bare hands.