For example, when I was first buying, every lender I spoke to told me that rents needed to be on my tax returns for at least a year before they could offset my debt and improve my debt to income ratio.  

Since the competition is either not improving or doing similar quality I don't need to over improve.  

Then put together a battle plan for the next one (what worked, what didn't, how to improve).  

A mechanics lien is simply a lien for unpaid improvements done to property by a contractor/supplier.  

If you've never done improvements before be careful with hard money.

It seems to me as a newbie that refinancing to get as much equity as possible pulled out of the rental will just raise the mortgage payment and therefore reduce your free cash flow, so I'm a little curious as well about why this is such a widely used tactic.I get that if you can apply the equity to a new property, you have more rent coming in, but you also have more mortgage interest going out, less potential buffer for capital improvements or maintenance, etc etc... less positive cashflow in general... right?

This led me to my first investment purchase and hopefully you can use these tips to improve your driving for dollars game too.Tyler (not a fireman)

It keeps chatter and drum marks down and improves sanding speed and quality tremendously.

@Jerry Ellis I personally wouldn't invest somewhere where my taxes could triple out of the blue unless I did a bunch of improvements, that could be a major cash flow killer. 

Great to see flippers taking pride in their work and turning over much improved property.