First, I joined the air force in 1994 and bought my first home in 2002.  

Granite Counters/undermount sink -$1450High effieciency furnace/central air/hot water heater $4500dishwasher/over the range microwave $800Carpet in 3 bedrooms $600Plumbing/electrical $500Garage door opener $150Bathtub reglaze/tiles reglaze $400re drywalled ceiling to cover pop corn -$600Spray the basement ceiling black $500painting/trim/doors/tons of drywall repair $6kmisc stuff i forgot $2k

I served in the Air Force for over 6 years and am now focusing all my efforts in real estate.

Handymen, plumbers, air conditioning folks, etc.  

Literally it's the exact same thing, with a sticker on it that says "Wells Fargo Exclusive Product" with air quotes around "exclusive." 

I think some of it was the extra pressure of working a new job as well, but I do recall how miserable it was and I believe the 203k process didn't help that either.Anyway, with all that, we bought a foreclosed home for $93k and put $63k into it and we LOVE it. 

It's a 4 bedroom, 2 bath colonial home built in 1964 with no basement (does have attic space) with window air conditioning units.

But, then again, I'm in an odd market.If there's no utility costs factored in, that means each unit should have it's own water heater, own air heater, own A/C (if it has them) ... that's a lot of potential capex.

I am also an Air Force vet.

What keeps it from taking off is that there's no good air service to the actual northern part of the state.If there were less regulation; and the federal government would allow limited development in some of those recreation areas, it would probably pull the entire state out of the hole, but... they won't.