I work long hours as a Chef at the University of South Carolina, there has to be a better way to become financially stable. 

She fired her old tax accountant.Another lady was in trouble with her husband because their long-time tax guy - University professor for tax accounting - said they would owe $20K for a recent tax year.

I was born and raised in the state of West Virginia, but primarily educated in Ohio universities, which included the University of Cincinnati and the Ohio State University.

@Justin Hennig  you may want to ask your self why the bank wants to be in first.. why universally HML will only do first position loans.2nd position loans are EXTREMLY risky unless your very experienced all the other things that you should do are pretty vanilla and folks have covered those.But bottom line.. do you have the money to pay off the first in full when the deal goes sour?

@William Morgan   real estate one oh one is that commissions are negotiable.. they are not set by NAR or law or anything else.. its quite the opposite.they tend to be customary in the universal fee is 6% or there about in the US>Much like in some markets its customary for seller to pay for title insurance and others its the buyer. its custom.I started my career in land sales in Northern CA...

I have one student condo in Knoxville occupied by University of Tennessee students and it cash flows better than all my others.

Mind you, I'm a professor at a state university, proud of being a life-long public servant, from a family where women were expected to become teachers.

To name a few differences, Southwest Philadelphia has less of an influence from University City, a trolley instead of the more frequent Market Frankford subway is used for travel to employment hubs in Center City, the housing stock often looks cheaper, etc. 

We manage to fill ours with mostly one bedrooms and one two bedroom, we are close to a university but we get mostly working adults, young couples and the occasional divorced parent with part time kids. 

I live in the UK with my wonderful wife, Huda, and we are both PhD Students at the University of Nottingham.Huda is working on helping cure brain cancer, and I am working on using wireless technology to give blind people more independence in future cities.We have basically 0 real estate experience, but are very willing to learn.