I would like to shop around as I feel much of the commercial contractors have a higher estimate.  

Feel free to ask your questions in the forums.

I'd like to add a legal bed and bath down there to get higher rents and bring the property value up, so that I can refi and get most/all of the money back that I use on the updgrade. 

If you were to combine several of the units together to the point there are only 5 units in the building, would this destabilize the whole building and be able to bring the rents up to market rates once the leases laps? 

I could not find any threads, but feel free to post any that exist.

Are you looking for cash flow, safe neighborhood or bringing a property out of the abyss to perfection?  

The jomax location has more of a rural feel where lookout mountain is completely built out.

Basically you would be taking a risk, but if you maintain your financing contingency, I actually feel the seller is taking the bigger risk.  

If you're wanting to create a fund that brings in private investor capital to use to create and hold mortgages, meaning holding them as assets on your balance sheet, that's a different beast. 

This would be a good time to bring the issue of noise up.