I'd be happy to sit down and talk wit you Peter. 

The style of room you are talking about is reminiscent of classic row house; railroad center room, windowless bathrooms (well, they mostly had windows, but it was really only for ventilation through the roof).If it is, depending on where the doors are sagging will tell you a lot about the condition of the bones of the house.

Talked with the owners this weekend, there is still a lot of sentimental value I've got to work through with them...hopefully something will click for me this week when I go to building court with them.

So talk to those old landlords and make sure there aren't gaps in their rental history!

@Leland Smith is this the flip you were talking about that you had in Franklin in the 37209 zip code?

Is there a way I can get money lent from an international hard money lender?

The guy I'm buying from is completely remodeling 3 of the four units, and I may be able to talk him into kicking the last lady out, who will be gone before closing anyways, and remodeling all 4.

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!

Stop wasting money on direct mail and let's get you into a deal so you feel like you are getting somewhere.Feel free to PM or email me if you don't want to talk here in the forum!

I'm going to keep this page open for my talking points when I talk to my realtor.