I find these homes all the time, rip the siding off and stucco the home.I do also agree that the most important factor is the curb appeal which would mean changing the old wood frame or metal frame windows, in doing so, you will have to stucco the home anyways unless you use retrofit pop-ins which I do not recommend, and all the other things mentioned - landscaping, nice looking color combinations, etc.So, is stucco convenient?

Anyone that uses the lines "I can't show you exactly how we do it" or "I can’t go over our historical data" is likely trying to rip you off!

Almost as profitable as a nice nursing home (and you probably know what a rip that can be...)

You could be looking at some local cleaning, or ripping out walls, carpets, woodwork, trying to deal with an extensive problem.

Chris hits it on the head, treat them as your partner with respect and not as someone who is out to rip you off every chance they get, this will make for a better relationship and jobs go much more smoothly that way.

I plan to resell not rent- just giving a perspective on the value to people.I can see everything from ripping everything out, to putting in a 2/1 guest suite.The ARV on this house will be 250K (very conservative)- to 300K.

And no offence to Steve, may he RIP, but the Japanese have been working on this for quite some time ;)http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/06/technology/personaltech/japanese_future.rb/index.htm

My original question was simply how to I keep myself from getting ripped off, I was concerned about giving an investor, especially one I met on craiglist, information about a property only to have them run with it and not get paid.

and HUD isn't known for being into ripping off potential buyers.

Besides fire damage has anything else been damaged if its sitting vacant (ex. copper plumbing removed by theives, electricall ripped out because of vandals.