I bought my first place in California with barely a penny in the bank, and I made nearly every mistake you can imagine, but I came out way ahead.

People are shortsaling left and right barely before they foreclose and moving into cheaper rentals or mutlifamily co-ops and sharing with multiple generations in the family to make their welfare checks cover overprice iphones androids and lux vehicles.Are rents really falling in Denver, already?

Based on the walk through I'd say the entire basement (about 1K ft sq) will need to be removed to bare studs in order to be confident that the job is done correctly.

This is an easy answer for me and may take quite a bit to express my experience so please bare with me. :) I don't have a license but if I did, the challenges would be a lot simpler to handle.Simply, I am a buy and hold investor and without getting too much into what can be read in my profile, please do read my profile to get a glimpse of my goals.

The only time I use laminate is when there is not already hardwood and so I need to cover the bare subfloor up with something.  

The rooming house scenario is usually operated with a minimum of maintenance, only bare minimum in maintenance and repairs.

The building itself is bare bones, just has the foundation, studs, etc.. minimal flooring, no walls or anything, so we get to build it ground up.

Only the opposite, I have a thick berber in one of my duplexes that is now 9 years old and you can barely tell it is used.

So for me, the only thing I have left is the laminate floors, in the bedroom, living room, and hallway..everything else is done..But thinking about it on those lines, that image of the dirty bare plywood will be branded in their minds.  

In my neighborhood house values have gone from the peak of 185,000 with foreclosures down to 75,000 at the bottom.Now it has gone back up to 85,000 to 90,000.Most of the foreclosures are Freddie Mac in my subdivision with a couple Fannie Mae's.I do the bare minimum to maintain the house.I am not worried about the value and simply the mortgage payment is much cheaper than rent for a similar house in the area.Eventually if you hold long enough it will rise back up to meet debt payoff.I don't see the primary residence house as my source of retirement.I see the other owners taking great care in my subdivision of their properties.This can only help the development to rebound sooner in value.