You should self manage for awhile and learn the business, until you are so busy that you need to hire help.

In another case, I had a $4m listing expire after 6 months and the sellers hired another realtor.

Hi Marcus,If it were mine, I'd hire a property inspector (like when you buy a home) vs having a tradesman do the inspection and see what he says.If it needs to be fixed, I'd get at least 3 bids from contractors who do this work for a living (state licenced brick masons) with (workman's comp insurance), and get 3 recent references from each one of them.

I also saw that she was busy hiring her family members to do work at the property (Trust me when I say that friends and family DO NOT match with running a great business/property).Having learned from previous experience I knew that I had to take action.

Can I still be hired by a company or work for myself if my license was not received through an accredited school or program? 

Do you plan on managing these properties yourself or hiring a PM company?

(Dodd Frank)***I can do my own OF up to 3 homes before needing to hire a RMLO licensed originator?

As mentioned above, you will need to be there (or hire someone to supervise) to monitor daily activity and track hours. 

So here's what I'd do....I would refinish the wood, something I have done with some success myself just for cost of rental sander, sand paper (all three grit levels), and stain and poly....get a bid on hiring it out, too..

You may not need a lot of money to start but you will be competing with some who have large budgets, send out thousands of mailers monthly, maintain multiple websites, hire answering services, and attend many meetings to keep themselves in front of buyers.