@Terri Hoffort:Hi Terri,It might fit into the neighborhood better, if a lot of people also have railings--or start a neighborhood railing trend.And the under porch fancy stuff, typically gets nailed on from behind the porch floor beam vs in front of it, and the bottom should miss the dirt by a few inches to prevent decay.Access--there is usually a window in the basement you can get through under there, or have one of the sides hinged so it swings up out of the way, because if leaves accumulate under there you (might) want to remove them.Good Luck!

Hard money loan for 6 months was a tight window considering the current tenants lease and will be closing a week late.

According to the City of Chicago, "All dwelling units must have either 1) one or more windows that face directly to the outside, and/or 2) a door that leads directly from the unit to a balcony" (this is assuming your basement is not connected with an above-ground entrance).

HVAC is sort of a must have, but it's not generally a value add unless you are going from say window units to central AC.

Peeling paint on an older house needs to be fixed, windows need to open and close, fire alarms, dead bolts on exterior doors, etc. 

I'm considering putting in window AC/Heat units instead of replacing it.

I was also in a 1031 and therefore had a gun to my head on closing the deal because my 45 day selection window had already passed.

I don't know the metrics of good/bad flips, but gotta think outside of nuisance value or triggering 40 1031s with different time windows, the seller'd get more out of piece-mealing them.If I had $8M, I think i'd get better bang on a larger MF project OUTSIDE OF PORTLAND PROPER.  

I would love to pick your brain on rates, timeline windows, PMs etc....Thanks so much in advance.

That being said, retirement is a sliding scale for us.