For instance on one job we had to install a steel stairway that our son had designed, and had fabricated.

In fact, I am so anti-BS Guru, the selling the "easy money" dream crap drove me so crazy that was one of the major reasons I started FIBI over 6 years ago with Jeremy Roll.Because of the nature & the reemergence of real estate investing in the public eye, there is always a percentage of newbies & wannabe investors with most meetings, not just FIBI.

Given the capital intensive nature of the business, why not parlay that into some excellent vacations and long-weekends?

You may want to consider natural light coming in the great room as well, since you're not going to have much light coming in from the front you may want to add more windows in the great room to bring in more light.

Many planned projects of this nature do not become a reality.You can get information on the likelihood of project coming to fruition by looking into zoning decisions that have been made by the local municipality.

There are a lot of really nice natural colors to choose from.

Nature's Miracle (normally used to remove pet stains) works well.

Naturally I chose the investor side of the story, so writing about this subject as a requirement really helps to understand what an investor should do in order to survive another crash.

So it is a natural fit.

The nature of the property, being unimproved will be viewed by conventional lenders at 50% LTV in most cases.