I tell people to spend a week with me in the wild and they will never look at a hamburger, a fishstick or a leather jacket the same way ever again.

Great responses, I will be spending more time on this forum!

Spend time here on the forums, on the blog, and going through the tools and resources on the left of this page.

I work with a lot of investors and I am scrambling to find a deal from them and usually they don't come from MLS.

Not yet convinced that pouring my time and energy into RE will yield appreciably better results than pouring it into the businesses I already own.Been spending lots of time doing math about it all, and the business continues to win out with cash flow, profitability, and wealth accumulation compared to time and energy expended on RE investment.I'm still very interested in the idea, but I need to be convinced before I go down the road.

If you go into section 8 it'll definitely pay for itself.Also, spend some time reading MikeOH's blog for lots and lots of good insight.

You spend more times reading forums than you do watching tv

So you would need to show that by having this property fixed up and rented the city is going to attract residents that will want to spend money in their city (shopping, dining, drinking, etc...), you will want to show a trend in neighborhoods that have gone up in value have increased the city's tax revenue over time, etc...While I am no expert, in the past, that has been the best route that I have seen to get discounts.As All Cash points out, having someone who used to sit on the board that makes those decisions is always a great route to go as well.

I have an interest in investing in Pittsburgh, but I don't spend a lot of time there so I don't have a lot of familiarity with the market.

What you spend it on is irrelevant, for the most part.