- I’ve also discovered the possibility of a construction loan but have not done much research on this idea yet.

Hey BiggerPockets, I recently have done a lot of reading about tax saving strategies for our business (we own a successful farming operation), and discovered multiple ways that we could save a TON on taxes - which means more money to put towards real estate! 

Recently I finally got the courage to turn the knowledge I’ve been accumulating the past year and a half of me discovering my love and passion of real estate into action and start looking for deals, looking for deals with NO idea on how I would fund them.

When you calculate the value of your time and the quality of the finished job, you may discover you didn't save much and you have an inferior finish.I know a lot of people that start off doing their own work to improve their return.

However, my installer discovered a problem with the subfloor in the kitchen.

I discovered that the current owner has numerous complaints filed against him from tenants and it paints a vivid picture of him being a slumlord(numerous of post are saying don't do business with this guy!). 

What would you say are your top 5 components of your business that have made you successful?

You need to know the life of the major components and their condition:Foundation - any repair needed will be a costly one.Plumbing - if cast iron, it rusts from the inside out so you never know when it's going. 

I use rentometer as one of the components of calculating rent.

They would certainly not have any fiduciary duty to the buyer but they would, if they were Realtors - not Real Estate Agents - be bound by a strict Code of Ethics as set down by the National Association of Realtors - and in the Code of Ethics;REALTORS® shall not, however, be obligated to discover latent defects in the property, to advise on matters outside the scope of their real estate license, or to disclose facts which are confidential under the scope of agency or non-agency relationships as defined by state law.