Another option is if you have good credit to secure a personal loan based on your healthy credit.

I am a brand new member from Oregon that is looking to invest in income producing properties  in the state of Ohio.  

My aunt is no longer in the picture and my Grandma's health is declining so she wanted to give us the house both to relieve the burden of caring for it and to help my brother and I get started on our investment plans.She bought in 2011 for $235k and put in, say, around $20k to partition the mother-in-law portion.

Going out of state has its additional hurdles and risks but I have clients that hold a healthy schedule of real estate out of state and do quite well.It really comes down to your current liquidity constraints and what out of state markets you want to get exposure to.  

Just googling good schools seems to produce mixed results.

If no, then maybe the real lesson is that the deal was too skinny to begin with, also a good learning, and in reality all you've done is pay an opportunity cost versus the next best investment choice you could've made with that money.Of course the other option is to just beat yourself up, but that only robs us of the learning opportunity and leaves us feeling bad about yourselves, which in my experience neither produces success nor happiness, both of which I'm assuming are your goals.

I should have said something right then and there about the smoking, but I was out the door for work and I wanted to produce a written notice along with an addendum to the lease changing it from a year long lease to a month to month lease. 

Other people really get off on that rush - for me it just produces anxiety.

I personally would rather have zero debt, 12 months emergency fund and then begin to build a portfolio of cash flow producing properties that give me multiple income producing benefits not just money to pay interest on debt to someone else..

@Tamka Brown Regarding the networking company, you can deduct expenses but related to the income that the company is producing.