I've rarely found that to be the case.Not trying to burst your bubble...I made a lot of mistakes on my first rehab, including WAY underestimating my repair cost and it cost me big time.

You combine that with whatever money you can put together.

I have 15K still available for additional closing costs in the bank.mortgage broker wants me to do a 40 year mortgage on a loan for 185K.He thinks the interest rate would be 6.75%, claiming that my down payment of just 5% and median fico of 720 and income (800+wk after tax) combined generate 6.75% for a 40 year.

Cash rarely hurts.That said I was going to take a look in any event.I was recently testing iiProperty.com.

I rarely see anything on the tax end.

Large dogs and small apartments are a bad combination (dogs need space).

These are not deals unless the owner has a big pile of cash to bring to closing (rare).

You know I've had kinda an interesting week....I've seen like two of those rare deals of the decade this week.

I do a lot of my own work so the contractors were rarely an issue.

as far as this being crazy, some family friends have been doing this for the better part of 30 years (combination of rentals and lease-options), and they are doing very well for themselves.