I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, but have little to no real estate repair experience. 

I was forced to "re-trade" and lower my offer because the numbers didn't work with all of that extra expense.

They may have good contacts for the other trades you need.

LOL, the only way to acquire a property with no credit extended or cash is to have it given to you or trade for it.

I took a cursory look at your forum and it looks likeyou're starting a nice forum there.Maybe you would like to pop on over to the introductionssection and tell us a bit about yourself, your forum, andwhat motivated you to start it.What trade are you yourself in?

It is a little more work, but an extra hour or two over six months seems like a fair trade for a good tenant.

He likes 40% normally for short-term trading, but will accept a little less for lower income brackets.  

A stable, high growth market will command lower CAP rates, while a riskier, slow growth market will trade at higher CAP rates.Hope this helps!

There are meetings and REIA's etc.. however the practice of teaching your competition your tricks of the trade is quite muted. 

Stripped it, restudded with 2x4  and insulated with R-13#3 is my prefererred method as it is the cleanest after demo, insulates the space and allows room for other trades to work cleanly.