I perused a wealth of introductory material over the 2012 holidays and started the new year by beginning to make offers.

Houses just like this one when rehabbed in this area are selling usually first week right now in the winter.

Today was a Winter Storm Warning with about 6+ inches of wet snow and blizzard conditions.

The summers can be a bit rough but hey, come winter time...I can wear a t-shirt still.

So I firmly believe that was a step in the right direction.Meanwhile, my girlfriend of three and a half years and I went to a rich dad free seminar down at the country club, and two things happened: she started to see where investing and 'financial intelligence' could take us, and I got fired up again about real estate investing (from two angles this time).Our current situation is as follows:Me:Almost zero cash and minimal credit available at this pointSOME stuff in collections from when I was in school, medical stuffsomewhere around 20,000 in school loans10,000 in credit card debt, plus another 5000 for my Jeep.Her:about 5000 in savings for a rainy dayprobably around 20,000 in available credit if she asked for itJUST(October) purchased the home we live in, so a new mortgage of 150,000That's about it.Right now I'm hurting for the winter, as I'm pretty new in the real estate business, and she's doing okay.

Shorter winters less code enforcement /tyranny and cheaper deals as well as better roi.

It's like a holiday.

Normally rent variation based on start time of lease is minimal; I might give a lower rent to fill vacancy in winter for example, but otherwise i try to get a fari market rent (not always max market rent).But since you know when the hot season is, you want to time your lease renewal in that area to be during that hot time of the year, so you might end up with a lease for some number of months that isn't a multiple of 12 to do that.

We finished an average rehab, listed the house for 6 weeks in the middle of winter before we got scared that we would never be able to sell it, and then decided to do a lease option.

Rental market is pretty strong as Northwestern University is nearby (not walking distance in our winters) but within a mile of main campus.