As my profile will read, I am very new to investing but I have been listening to BP podcasts religiously for about two weeks now and I can honestly say it has already helped answer a few questions for me.

Scott Carson had a november 15th BP blog with some must reads, I listed some classics of landlord literature in a blog post (see right side of my profile)...

I got in the property for $15k down + $10k in improvements for a total of $25k.

And I have a short blog post on some classic books on landlording (on right side of my profile) that should be free at a library or low cost used...thanks for your service, too, btw...

Purchase @ a discount, improve the property,  then hold.  

South of 95 has a few up and coming spots for sure but there are still some areas that are not seeing much improvement.

I would love to get your lending details once you've set up shop.My contact info is in my signature and profile page.

We are all from different places and it never hurts to share best practices with each other just to see how we could improve in our daily operations.I know you don't have to do this but I truly appreciate it. 

They wanted us to over-improve for the value of the house.  

Definitely a fixer upper, like $25/foot for interior, exterior, landscaping, asphalt improvement.