Now with all that being said - next time go forth and do a bit more cost comparison shopping.

There are proactive and preventative things that can be done to "catch" bed bugs at an early stage and needs to be shared with your renters.You educate them on bed bugs and have them sign an acknowledgement that they have read the materials and will stay aware and on top of what and where they contact bed bugs (i,e, travel,buying used furniture, shopping at thrift stores, etc)Nip it now so that you don't have to go through this again in the future because the risk gets greater especially if someone has a severe reaction to the bites - guess who gets sued?

For instance, 10+ yrs ago while my wife and I were shopping for our first home together, we visited a house that had 3 very memorable traits:1) The attached garage had been converted to a gigantic living room/man cave with the biggest TV I'd seen at the time, several couches, a pool table, dart board, foosball table, and a huge wood burning fireplace.

Maybe I could enclose it for a garage, shop or storage.

Yet, i shop on amazon all the time.i have the luxury to go to any of the 10 HD's around me. good luck.

On the other hand, as suggested above, a small town may be more subjected to a sudden economic jolt (e.g. a Wal-Mart comes to town and now your strip shopping center is half vacant).There is no universal answer.

These were not little holes in the wall but really nice shops.

We look for nice newer houses in nice subdivisions with good schools, and convenience to shopping, commuting, and such, so we have a good percentage return and real appreciation potential.

I saved hundreds yesterday on one tip about an appliance repair guy who will swap appliances for you for a fraction of even the used appliance shops I've been using around Atlanta.If you're in the Atlanta area use my contact-me off our website and I'll share my contractor list that I've built up from the Deal makers list.

If you shop around at the small banks and credit unions you should be able to find someone that will do a 30 year amortization with a 5 to 10 year balloon at 1% or so over conventional rates.