I used to live with my sister's apartment without knowing that the real landlord of that house she rented was dead...sometimes we hear of a child laughing at 12 midnight,we haven't any baby or child in the house and we even experienced that there is someone's watching us....our apartment has 4 bedroom, with basement.

Building several relationships with a few experienced Realtors would be very helpful.

Are lenders more apt to do a short sale if a reputable experienced realtor is handling the package?

But, clean up can be the most exciting because you get to see a big change right away, and as you said, non experienced people are scared away from these kind of deals.

Recently I have been experiencing the same thing!

The Fed has engineered two booms and busts (the dot-com boom/bust and the real estate boom/bust).

Do you experienced investors just rehab enough to make it habitable, or do you go an extra step or two?

Help from an experienced CPA is a plus.Bob_in_VA - I'm in VA also and I can help you if you get confused or would like a more indepth explaination of some tricky items.

I have learned a lot through some of the more experienced members on the forums.

I've never developed, and would need experienced developers to see if its a worthy project.