I called a plumber that I deal with a lot and he said he would do the job for $170, which I thought was a fair price.

I've factored in Taxes, Insurance, Cleaning, Snow/Lawn, Turn over.I've got the money to fix it, and my 8-5 can supply additional funds to turn it around if needed.Knowing what you know, would you jump on this deal?

Ideally, it will not only pay expenses, but produce cashflow for additional income (if you dont buy right, then you might never be able to produce positive cashflow so analyze each property carefully).

When you factor in the time to write ads, take pics, hang lockboxes & chase all the paperwork around I'd gladly pay a full months rent (assuming it was done well).

If he doesn't black out the price, I now know how much he's making, and that factors into my decision to negotiate and how.If he blacks out the price, I'm fine with that and will negotiate based on other information relating to the deal.

If you borrow to bring in the house you will have to factor it into your sales price... opinions vary... but that is my quick and dirty take...

Maybe the totals year over year would be pretty identical if you factored in short sales as well.I definitely see a lot more short sales on MLS than I remember from last year.What I am seeing is a lot less of the lower priced houses (sub 100k) these days.

Their opinion was that fair market is broad and could be lower or higher based on many factors: condition, long term versus short term, knowledge of the pending foreclosure going into the lease, etc.

Another important factor is what bank services the loan(some require submittals through Equator) who owns the loans, is it Freddie, Fannie, FHA, does the investor participate in HAFA, etc.

And we always factor in if any improvement will actually bring higher rents enough to justify it.