@John UnderwoodGreat piece of advice, definitely!

My brain is exploding trying to piece it all together, never having done it before.

There are different stages of adding valueHypothetically if I would go back 7 years and own a piece of land outright with zero experience..I would spend money and pay a few consultants and engineers to get approvals for the best use of the land example 300 unit condo building..

I've included this piece of information of course in my strategy for searching for future purchases in the area.  

Once you get good at it, you can generally do it in about 15 minutes...Btw, as I go through the house, I put a piece of blue painters tape on every little issue I see so that I can send my handyman back to fix things.

Again, the bank's don't have different policies but there is one piece I agree with.

The certificate program may be complete trash and they could just give you a piece of paper that means nothing.

Think of the tax piece separately.

Focus on the soil of the land I probably bought the worst piece of land in the best location because the soil is so saturated to where there’s no way I can keep the house level.

A lot of them turned out to be a sliver or tiny piece of another property which wouldn't do me or anyone any good.