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.

If the interest-only loans have higher up-front costs (points, etc) than the loan you just used, eliminating the burden of interest payments might actually raise your overall expenses at the end of the day, however.For example, if you can get a bank loan at 6% and 1/2 point, but it is amortized (has principal payments) the payments might be higher than an interest-only private money loan at 10% and three points, but the second option has a higher total cost.You just have to shop around, compare terms, and pick the best fit for you.

When I was shopping our general liability policy I did all I could to get preliminary copies of the policy itself so I can see what I was paying for.