So, if you wanted to sell your 100K house and buy another 100K house that's a better investment - that will probably cost you around $15K in expenses (i.e. money that you burned).  

@Andrew ChallengerOkay, now I see why sub-leasing might be desirable to have: to let someone else burn-off the remaining 3 months.I hadn't considered that the students might want to have their own room without a roommate.

I think its this burning desire to make money while you sleep and have to hardly work for it etc etc.. that keeps people focused on this RE dream which may or may not be reality for most and certainly induces others to make investments that they no business making..

If it went any higher the argument for renting would become even stronger.The opportunity cost of tying up all that cash, time & energy is almost never worth it.One of the only times it makes since to finance your primary residence is when you know you are buying a property substantially under market, and reselling it.

With a local bank they want full recourse forever but you can negotiate say if you bought with three partners that you are only responsible for a certain percentage of recourse and that you want the recourse to burn off completely once a certain LTV is reached. 

And I agree with you that it's not the best deal in the world, however for my first deal the numbers worked well enough that I'm making a small bit of cash and at low risk of getting burned.

Then there will be the energy calcs, etc. required for adding any new windows, etc.

Other considerations may be energy efficiency, age, style of the home, functionality, condition, marketability and useful economic life of the entire property.

I posted on Facebook to all my friends that I was going to start a REI business (commitment) and started telling my personal network in my target market (do something) that I want to help people who think they need to get out of their house and don't want to put it on the market for whatever reason.My goal is to help folks who have few options on their home and don't have time, energy, etc. to sell retail.

I have been burned already by a local Web designer so any input will be appreciated.