I’m just starting out with real estate investing and I have my eyes on a few properties I think will have good cash flow.

My wife and I had our eyes on a neighboring property for years.

I really appreciate the effort and taking the time to come up with this great layout, I love it especially since there is no wasted space and the living room- kitchen area would be around 5 feet taller and almost 2 feet wider, now I’m comparing between the last layout that I was thinking of I’ve attached a picture below, and my question to you as an engineer is which one would cost less and which one would have less deal breakers in it in the eye of a buyer, I’ve put down a very general steps that needs to be taken for each one of them leaving out of the picture the family room converting for now, in the new layout all the bedrooms will have a direct access to bathrooms, but in cast of a guest they’d have to pass a bedroom to go to the bathroom, not sure if that’s very important or not, and if we’d go with the layout you proposed I’d defiantly do the stack-able washer and dryer and maybe put the water heater beside them and use the top part of that space for jackets or small open closetThis is a picture of the other layout that I was thinking of except for the entry door would be in located where the current window is A general steps needs to be taken for each layout are Layout 1 where we relocate the kitchen Convert a window to a front door Maybe build a small porch for the new front door ?

A PM should tell you what's going on, your eyes and ears, but if you let them do all the work themselves then they definitely may be taking advantage especially since a lot of them do mark-up costs.

It would be fun to see the whites of their eyes when these boys pulled up.

I will definitely keep an eye out.

Agree with Mitch.... get some team eyes on this one.

While a tenant can choose words carefully and strategize over a carefully worded email, catching someone off-guard over the phone will likely get you the truth about the situation.

The catch would be holding in my name for a period of time before the Refi took place.  

When finding contractors you have a catch 22.