There is never a cut and dry response.

Once the bottom hits, you buy like crazy.Normally no one has money at the bottom because Lending Dries up.

Order title as soon as you know the deal is yours... close before the ink on the contract is dry.

Right now I have a large dry powder / opportunity fund in a money market acct earning 1.25%.

If the market takes a turn you'll want to have some dry powder.

A lot of the questions, to me, seemed like they were splitting hairs and so I just used best guesses and kept rolling because if you overthink it gets foggy.

If you were looking to go cheap and know you have a dry basement carpet may be your best bet. 

The utilities had to be located once the ground was dry and ready for excavation.

In the last downturn HELOC's also were drying up along with lower lending LTV's.Banks go into (meltdown mode) where they want to keep loans performing at all reasonable costs and shrink ratios to borrowers in what they see as a very risky current lending environment.If you have ever heard the saying a banker has an umbrella for you on a sunny day but when it starts raining they run like hell!

In my experience with residential, the more work that is needed beyond cosmetic the lower the profit at the end, which when coupled with the time required, ends up being a much worse hourly return on your time and money.With the added difficulty of the heirs not being in communication with each other and the rest of the hair on the deal, I would move on.When you first get started, I think most people don't respect the value of their time enough and haven't seen how high a percentage of deals apart.