I don't feel with comfortable with all the alternative financing people discuss and went with a mortgage on the home. 

With an IRA you will be exposed to higher gains when the market is doing well and have an alternative source of retirement income with a whole life policy to hedge against a bear market.

Alternatively, you can use the following formula:Take Your: ARV Less: Rehab CostsLess: Holding/Fixed Costs (ex. 

I'll detail out some of the build over a couple posts, but here is a sneak peak of the finished project.Since I didn't have much experience in land development, AND I couldn't really get a good feel for the lay of the land because of all the trees...I only budgeted 5k for extra dirt to make the lot "buildable", well over 130 TRUCK LOADS of dirt and 27k later did I finally end up with a lot fit for a house!

So they being rented is the only alternative to being vacant?

Hi BP forum, Frank from the near west subs in Chicago,IL. My first post on BP.  So I listened to lots of BP Podcast, got my mail box, got my google phone number got my post cards for my mailings, went to listsourse fo...

My salary at work is right at $85k (take home)...When I get home next week I will need a truck.

I knew a guy with a similar property in California, and he dropped the plan when he learnt that the bridge and road would have to support a fire truck. in his case, road and bridge would have cost more than the value of a house in the area.

~ $450 for a bobcat & operator to transfer the dirt from the delivery trucks and into the pool (we were going to just rent the bobcat but found a guy on Craigslist who owned one and was willing to also do the driving of it for about the same price as it would have cost to just rent the bobcat by itself)~ $100 to rent a tamping rammer to compact the dirt So, in total, about $2600. 

My thoughts were along those lines as well, with the idea being to hold some solid, cash-flowing rentals.I'm curious to know if other people are utilizing alternative strategies during slow economic growth conditions.