The thing is, there are actually end buyers out there who are OK with the possibility of making 5-10 grand on a $300,000 house.

As anybody knows, a decreasing population is the death knell for property prices, especially on a grand scale like that;5) Once you have renovated, how are you gonna get your money back, let alone make a profit?

You’ll need a million bucks in a 401k to get you monthly what like 200 grand can get you in real estate. 

(West of Phoenix)This the latest in a slate of good economic news for the cities west of Phoenix, collectively called the West Valley.Highlights of the Phoenix Business Journal article, written by reporter Corina Vanek:After a search that lasted more than two years and included over 300 sites in 20 different states, KORE Power Inc. will build its manufacturing facility in Buckeye, where it expects to employ about 3,000 people.Coeur d’Alene, Idaho-based KORE had narrowed its selection to sites in Arizona, Florida and Texas before deciding on the Grand Canyon State a few weeks ago, Lindsay Gorrill, CEO of the company, said.

This would happen with flippers stopping their business in CA, it would drop a lot of the comps, home values (not all of them) a good amount of them and the appreciation would not be as grand as it would if they stayed around and continued their pursuit of the real estate hustle. 

Highly recommend Fort Worth/Tarrant/Arlington/Mid-Cities/Grand Prairie/Burleson/Grapevine/Haltom City/Mansfield/HEB/South DFW/Hurst. 

The book BLOWS.This is the deal:Let's figure out a way to cold call as many distressed folks as we can to see if we can buy their reverse-mortgaged properties and put a few grand in their pockets, a few grand in a "TRANSACTION COORDINATOR"'s pockets and so on and so on.It's borderline bottom feeding and it makes me pause to consider the integrity of BP, David Greene and Robuilt Robbie with his awesome hair.I love learning about REI and love what I've gotten from this community thus far but the whole SUBTO tribe wreaks of used car salesmanship.Sorry for the rant but that's just my $.02

If you aren't paying anything to a buyer's agent, they aren't going to show their clients your home at all, so in the grand scheme of things, 5 1/2% is not super high. 

Even with the duct work up top, I just assumed "Oh I'll pay someone a couple grand to nicely tuck it away" and didn't think about the implications of why it's like that to begin with.So it seems like the takeaways from this thread are that it's not a bad plan to invest in cheaper houses in selective Detroit neighborhoods, but you better have a good property manager and you better be comfortable with the house (or budget appropriately if you know its in bad shape).

I have one that will be coming available soon near Grand Canyon Univ. that would be a good choice.