. $15,000 may be reasonable for a higher end retreat for wealthy travelers but obviously if you are targeting young professionals that would be way more than necessary.After you determine your target market,  put yourself in their shoes and understand what they need not necessarily what they want.

We owe 96k.Rents for 850 on each side, note plus ins/taxes is 738.We've put about 5k into the units to get them up to our standards and to get better renters/cash flow.I'm Leary on distressed properties as it takes a lot more time to rehab them and with my day job this is tough especially since I travel quite a bit.  

I wanted to quickly introduce myself to the community as I am hoping to becoming a pretty active user of the site.I currently reside in Brighton, MA but most of the time I am traveling across the United States for work. 

This is going to be hard at the moment as I travel 100% for work all over the world so managing a rehab from China is not so easy.Hopefully I can meet up with some of the local members whenever I'm in town.

The only thing you really need is basic info from the state on what the inspection requirements are for section 8 housing (these are usually very simple, i.e. smoke detectors, working utilities, etc.) and a point-man who can go to the section 8 offices and tell people about the units you have.

I am still very much at the start of the learning curve, but I'm fairly sure I want to become a Buy and Hold investor -- the rest is too abstract for me -- and that I will likely live in my first property, in part so I can qualify for the homeowner advantages.I don't live in Philly so will be traveling frequently from my home in Brooklyn over the next several months to get the lay of the land.

I travel a lot but home and where I'd like to invest is south Florida.

wow good points.the plumbing was a mystery SMELL, turned out to be a compromised sewer line, took a smoke test to figure out. the source of the smell was not near the origin hahaha.You are right on about the losing money on charity. it's a constant battle with me, but with my husband on my back hahaha, not happening. 

On a recent deal, I bought 4 properties at the full asking price and didn't even try to negotiate because I thought it was a smoking deal and didn't want to miss the opportunity over trying to save a few more dollars.  

@John Tokarz Do you have no smoking rules in place?