You can take an apartment building with problems say 40% occupancy and deferred maintenance and bad tenant mix and management problems and use commercial hard money.You will have to figure in the high debt service while turning around.Once stabilized you will refinance out at the new value up to a certain LTV.Take the money and do it again.The larger the project the more the potential ARV spread after stabilized but the more risk.The larger projects take more time to turn around so the churn rate on the money is slower.What happens and I have seen this is people run out of money and the property is taking longer to stabilize than thought.Then you have some money left but not enough to take down a property yourself until you unload this other deal you bought or refi.You then start partnering with different people on different projects which can lead to a mess.You don't just want to grow out of impatience or doing more deals and then get involved with the wrong people or overt extend yourself.You want smart,well thought out,controlled portfolio growth that is highly calculated.

We try to get as specific as possible when estimating rehab costs, as this is an area where investors tend to fail, often leading to poor returns and in some cases losses.

As a newbie I have more questions than answers and any answers I get seem to generate more questions.

Greg, if you already have a system where you are generating the close to 1Mil pre-tax why do you want to change that strategy.

I definitely agree with Jason - septic tanks can lead to serious problems, so it would definitely be a good idea to get an inspection if you are going to purchase the house, or avoid the property altogether.

Do any of you guys use internet marketing to capture good, high quality leads?

Often times (and I have seen this happen) a developer does improvements based on a certain tenant going in.Then the (A grade) tenant doesn't stay as long as anticipated.The second or third generational space user going in pays much lower that the original lessee because of their business model.So you just have to be sure after improvements if they bail you can lease at the same rate or higher and that there will be demand for office space.Washington and other areas unemployment is low.Most of the other areas unemployment is very high.This puts pressure on businesses and makes very few new starts up happen.For this reason in Atlanta office is overbuilt and vacancy last I checked was at 20%.

The excitement of the deal fades, the promoter moves onto the next deal and future investors sense your desperation - leading the sharp ones to ask for a bigger cut - or worse, part of your promoter share.

but it still is a conflict, and thereby inevitably leads to questions and loss of confidence when the situation above happens with tenants

With this new lead certification requirement, I would think you would need someone certified to start work on older homes.