You probably don’t think of Nike as the kind of company that makes the soles of its shoes in a garage with a waffle iron.

I always check that first and then call one of my trusted appraisers that are kind enough to tell me their opinion of what they could get before moving forward.

Make sure to let people know what kind of loans you offer (res. / commercial / land, fixed / ARM, terms).

Figure out what kind of demand you have in your area.

What kind of company do you have?

I am kind but vocal and my managers stay on top of my properties because they appreciate the business and the attitude... a lot of landlords are not kind about managing their property managers as if they earned the right to be jerks.

hmm... a few useful bits of info from what I've learned so far without copying the entire fix and flip page from my website:An ideal place to start looking might be in neighborhoods that are in the 25-35 year old range; basically where houses are outdated but still hopefully in good structural condition.With this kind of unit, you can focus on some of the more basic, value-added repairs such as paint, flooring, landscaping, and other basic finishing touches.

It would be extremly difficult to give you any advice if you don't know what kind of returns you're looking for, and under what time-span.

[Edit: unless of course FSBO's started using some kind of nationwide database to store this information]4.

Obviously that affects your payback period.Again, not to rain on you too much, but the $18K discount on the second one is kind of offset by the $11K you had to put into it to make it rentable.BTW, I'm sure lots of folks will take issue with my somewhat sarcastic attitude in my response to "edge" and "prohabber".