It needs a lot of work and I just would like to reach out to my new founded family for the best approach to make sure I don't estimate to much or to little on this job.

I lived in the unit for a little over a year then ended up moving due to job relocation and have been renting out the unit for over 2 years now. 

@Leland Smith You are about to sign with a contractor that will not finish the job.

I am looking to begin my adventure in REI to improve my retirement account in order to have the opportunity to retire in the next 5-10 years. 

I've bought some pretty fancy dinners this way in the past.Either leave some temporary outlets, or get a temporary power pole if it's going to be a long-term job.

If you have a steady job and make a decent wage and you like your credit union, talk to the manager and let them know the situation.

My "day job" is as a Loan officer so if you have any questions about financing or wholesaling let me know.Good luck!

I like to look at census and job growth data and see how or if the area I'm looking to invest in is growing.  

This may be a long post, but I thought it would be good to walk through everything step-by-step, and explain my thinking along the way.If you want to stick with me through it all, here we go:I was not going to be getting a conventional mortgage for my first property for a number of reasons.First, I am still annoyed at the hoops I had to jump through to get a mortgage for my primary residence.Second, my liquid cash was on the lower end.Third, the properties that I would need to start out with would not be financeable anyway.Fourth, my DTI is on the high side, due to the decision that we made to take out a HELOC to complete interior improvements on my primary house.So, I decided that my path was going to be to form a single member LLC, and take a loan from my 401(k) at work to finance the down payment.Since I do not view the 401(k) loan as a long-term solution, I am treating like hard money, and pay it off ASAP.So, my first deal would be a flip, or a rental that was such a good deal, that I could re-fi out and pull all my cash out.I decided to reach out to the commercial lending department of the local credit union, which I am a member.The person I talked to (who became my lender) is fantastic.I told him what types of properties I was looking for, and that I’d look to turn them into rentals, or to flip them.I will never forget his response, which reminded me why I love this credit union.He said:“Typically, the deals you are talking about are much smaller than the deals we like to do.However, we also realize that you can not get to that level unless someone helps you get there.So, if the numbers make sense, we will see if any of our products fit.”Awesome!

I have a great W2 job now, but not enough in savings to plunk down on a property right now.