@Peter Halliday Both Maywood and Bellwood got hit HARD during the recession and are barely limping back into existence.

Jim Stallings I got ya I figured there had to be more to it and sorry to hear about all the hard work you had put in to see it seemingly taken.

Is this what hard money lending is for?  

Has anyone every used Midwest Corporate Credit company for their loans? If so, how did you like them?

On the other hand, if you spend $5,000 per unit and increase the rent by $100 per month, that's a 24% return on your money and that's hard to beat. ($1,200/$5,000 = 24%).Similarly, if spending money increases the appraised value of your property for the refinance, that might be worth it.

Laminate is good for living areas or bedrooms, but again can be hard to locate the exact type of laminate in the future if you need to replace it.

If you can, I prefer private, or hard money.

yes, there is  It's hard to explain unless you're in the business but there is an average of a 2 point hit to your YSP.  

I moved out of it this year and it's cash flowing better than my out of state investments.It's going to be very hard to buy something with FHA loan in the current market but not impossible.Good luck!

Yes, it's different - the banks are a lot more difficult to work with, at least on the small-time side of things, but we also have a similar private money market and hard money lenders.