Her background in social work has easily crossed over into the Real Estate Industry.

Huge loss, That tree could easily be worth over 10 KCall  local college in your town they are usually the best and can give recommendations for good arborist in your area or hit googleCall property appraiser. besides the tree appraiser. it's a real loss to the value of the property not just the cost of the tree..Get any photo's you can of the tree, summer and winter.Take a measurement of what's left of trunk of tree and get any photo's of it you can before it's all gone. the measurement is taken 4 feet above the base of the tree,, save that section of tree if you can.

I'm saving for an investment property and was wondering if I could get your opinions on where I should be holding this money or what I should do with this money, so it grows (more than sitting in the bank) and is easily accessible to use when I do need it for my investments. 

Village government is great and renters are easily available.  

I think plan to go that route, but I'll still try to do whatever due diligence I can to offset pet liability (regardless of size or kind ... someone could easily trip over a cat and sue!)

I have always been a big saver so when surprises do occur I can manage easily. 

Here's the way I look at it... you can easily get 5-8% return in an index fund in the stock market.

Speaking of which, we anticipate being able to rent it pretty easily for 1400 per side and with the fixing up are hoping we could get 1500-1600.

You could sell the truck and easily have enough to buy a beater and put down a down payment on a house, that way you can start building equity and actually work toward your goal.

If you don't have the experience/knowledge in rehab costs and everything that goes along with it, you could very easily end up being in way over your head.