Ya I couldn't agree more....Here's my list of reason for doing REI:1) You can never get fired so you have permanent job security2) You can work from home which has it's own huge set of advantages3) You can set your own schedule, wake up when you want and work as many or few hours as you want.4) You set your own pay5) You're often earning as much or more than high power doctors and lawyers.6) Once you have as little as 1 apartment building you likely have enough income to never have to work again if you don't want to.7) As you continue to acquire rental properties your month cash flow rapidly goes up into the five figure range and eventually even six figures.8) You can do a deal from almost anywhere in the world.

You have to figure in holding and closing costs when you make an offer on the property.

and once you have a figure in your head, how do you attack the situation ?

Now I take about 5 minutes before I call them to figure that number from comps.

i'm not so sure how much of the travel he's figuring into his "cash flow" charting - he's been up there twice already.

I have found a couple of properties on the sherriffs foreclosure listing website that are rather peculiar and was hoping someone could help me figure this one out.

Welcome to the forum, and I hope you figure out your hot water situation.It's always good to see another fellow Texan here.

Your best bet is a hard money lender, and if you don't even have atleast the upfront fees (usually about 5-6%) then the HML probably won't feel comfortable with it.Third, when you say you figure it will sell for 70K or 90K, what are you basing that off of?

With a little intelligence and even without outside insight and wisdom (as from this forum) it would only take a couple rehabs to figure what to do and what not to do.People do make real money at doing #1 and #4 (I'm one of them :D ), but you caught on to the key very quickly.

What are some of the guidelines I should follow when trying to figure out if a deal is good or not?