Hi Corey,The strategy we took with a 203k loan was to get into the 203k loan first, and pay the PMI, and then refinance as quickly as possible once the renovation was completed and we had brought the property value up, so we could get rid of the PMI.This is a more expensive option (you pay two sets of closing costs), but we couldn't afford the up-front costs on a conventional renovation loan, so it's what we did, and the numbers worked out once we evaluated the savings from eliminating the PMI.I would shop around different lenders to see what kind of conventional renovation loans they offer.

Debt to income ratio: They need to make sure that you can actually afford to pay the loan.

They finally evict the owner by getting him arrested at his house on back child support, within a few weeks bank has a moving company and other people there clear everything out furniture old car in the driveway etc.

You must be smart to make enough to afford a 4k mortgage.  

I moved back in no small part due to the accelerating real estate market here, where prices are still affordable. 

Timely, efficient, and affordable.

There are professional stagers in the DMV because it's a lot of furniture to deal with for an occasional stager, if the property is empty or the current furniture is all wrong.

So far, so good.I then received a series of frantic emails from both tenants (they are a couple) claiming amongst other things that the painter had moved all of their bedroom furniture, leaving everything for them to put back, and that the painter had interfered with personal items.

I would just get a decent, affordable storage shed and be done with it. 

With my demanding full-time job and inability to outbid the all-too-common NYC cash buyers, I don't have enough free time to hunt down the affordable hidden deals (assuming there are any!)