I have an investment property in Chicago and want to learn more about buy-and-hold opportunities here, since it seems like we will have to do a little traveling to find places with prices that will let you cash flow.

Thanks @Joe Gore , but it looks like I have to sign up for some sort of business package, and I cannot find the actual pricing.

Sheetrock needed to be pulled out and replaced anywhere the spores had traveled... and because it was a balloon frame house, that was a lot of sheet rock.There was lot more we did to remediate... if you are interested, I can point you toward some places where I wrote about our experience.

Every other part of our package seems to be solid, but I guess i came to believe, rightly or wrongly, that not having a job was an Achilles' Heel, and that this was the lender for us.

For the money, there probably isn't any other local place you can go for the depth of support a decent REIA can provide. 9 out of 10 title companies are designed for the typical first time home buyer and might not understand your creative finance package for example...your local REIA can help guide you to someone that does in fact get it.I have managed to buy property found via REIA classifieds, though today it seems such publications just create too much competition.

I have traveled to Europe and South America, and know cost/taxes vary from region to region significantly.  

Thankfully my travels don't include that nightmare. 

And if they want to buy a package of 100 houses, NEVER see them, NEVER touch them and NEVER lift a hammer, and they bring in an acceptable Return On Investment, GREAT, more power to them. 

It's tough to get the whole package in one person (although we did) and the comments on the restaurant failure rate are probably a bit conservative from my experience.Good luck and Happy Fathers Day!

Is there a way to package this so that I could reduce commissions?