thanks everyone in advance for any help you can give me. It's greatly appreciated. My name is Kasan Kelley and although I've been interested in real estate for a looooong time. I've rekindled my love after discovering...

Greg, something to keep in mind that I learned from my CPA a couple of years ago (I am retired now, so not an issue these days), but if you make over ($150k I believe), your rental tax deductions cannot be claimed.  

Over the next month i am looking for a couple key people.  

The couple possible apartments I'm looking to purchase are in the $350k to $500k zone, but am finding a challenge collecting the necessary 20% down for the loan.

Other loans may be the opposite, with the money being disbursed after you have completed the task that the money is earmarked for.Many contractors would be completely fine waiting a couple days to get paid. 72 hours(48 for contractor review, 24 for funds availability) is essentially nothing in the contractor world.

We too like the $50k range, though you can get a couple juniors for the $30k range, though we always keep $5k in reserves for expenses & foreclosure if needed.

A couple comments to prior posts.

There is a lot to be said for the benefits of name brand recognition.

They just built a couple of massive and mostly vacant apartment buildings downtown. 

Just started researching and reading about investing in real estate a couple weeks ago, and have been listening to the podcasts (which are awesome!).