I've discovered just as many negative responses as positive ones if not more negative, which is why I haven't pulled the trigger.  

After the first year you can get a new appraisal and pull out 80% as non owner occupied and eliminate the PMI.

So, to summarize, take action and start looking, but don't pull the trigger unless you're very confident you've got a great deal.

When analyzing deals, I like to shoot for as high an IRR as possible while still maintaining a decently positive cashflow buffer to prevent me from having to pull money out-of-pocket for common expenses.I've been looking into the Wissinoming area of Philly as well, seems to have an interesting value proposition.

If we DON'T pull the trigger now, and he DOES get out of the service, we are looking at a possibility of our 6 month plan turning into a multi-year plan by the time he has 2 years at a new job to qualify for a mortgage.Obviously we can't tell the future.

Brad Saari how did you pull this off.

My realtor friend pulled comps at $155-$175K.

Would you ask the owner to pull the permits for what he did in the past as a condition of the sales contract?

Buy at a discount, rehab the house, rent it out for a monthly residual income and refinance it so you can pull your money back out to do another one?

We have looked at several in Grand Haven and Holland, but have not pulled the trigger yet.