It's thrifty, it's efficient, and it's going to fail unless they are cleaner and more respectful than average so who would have an issue with that?

A lot of forum members are very knowledgeable in their respective fields related to real estate investing, whether that is real estate sales, wholesaling, flipping, rentals, lending, self-directed IRA and Solo 401k investing, or tax and legal guidance.Discounts on some products and services are offered to BP members: https://www.biggerpockets.com/perks/proIf you haven’t been to it already, you might want to check out the BP blog: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/The site has quite a few tools that can be helpful for new members.

In fairness, it was a generic question so I should have expected a generic response..I've since read the Book on Tax Strategies, and I feel like there was some additional things that I could have been doing..not necessarily the CPA's fault for not knowing/offering the same info to me, but I can't afford to leave any money on the table here.The only reason I'm asking the hivemind is I want to tread lightly because I respect this guy; he reached out to me and gave me an hour of his time when my wife passed to help me get stuff straightened out..but I also want to feel confident that he's going to be giving me recommendations tailored to my situation.I was just thinking of asking if he knew about self-directed IRAs as a kind of litmus test..anybody else have any non-confrontational questions that I could use to see if I should still use him?

@David Latu I respect everyone’s opinion above.

I respectfully disagree sir.

and I reworked the numbers.I raised CAPEX and Vacancy to 10 and 8 percents, respectively.

I’m looking for respectable contractors in the Pee Dee region.

A lot of forum members are very knowledgeable in their respective fields related to real estate investing, whether that is real estate sales, wholesaling, flipping, rentals, lending, self-directed IRA and Solo 401k investing, or tax and legal guidance.Discounts on some products and services are offered to BP members: https://www.biggerpockets.com/perks/proIf you haven’t been to it already, you might want to check out the BP blog: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/The site has quite a few tools that can be helpful for new members.

My maintenance guy tells me their respective FB posts have them living apart in their respective parents homes paying down their Liberal Arts student loans but dissing each other for everything imaginable. 

I probably didn't have significantly more than the 25k you mentioned, but I would say that if you want to house hack in Chicago in a decent location, you'll definitely need more than that to have a respectable amount of reserves after the down payment.My biggest pieces of advice would be to:1.