They are usually on top of the market and can give you stats easily and free.

When I get a call form my yellow letters campaign I know its in an area I can sell quickly and evaluate easily. 

I think a few things come to mind from this, had either of us done this without the other we would have lost incredible amounts of money, the contracting could have easily been double if he had contracted this out, while if I had a hard money loan, or even done this from savings I would have run out of money.

This project also needed the crawls space to be completely redone; new drain tile and sump pump system, foundation repair, encapsulation, rim joists and floor joist, 14 new supports with cement footings, plus the duct work, electrical, plumbing, and main drain lines... easily about $25k to contract out... my cost was about $2,200.Sometimes I say, " I save more money than I make".  

For fixed expenses they can easily be rolled into the rent.  

build the ADU, you should easily make a 2% GRM in SF and you will recapture the majority of your expense at a minimum on sale of your place.

Now obviously that is a special case, but it gave me a first row seat in terms of understanding how real estate can change lives.

Thanks for providing an amazing platform for a semi-investor like me to learn the ropes of REI with the impressive quality of people and breadth of strategy/tactics that are so easily accessible.As for a little background, I'm in sales/business development for a software startup and have been living in Seattle for over 10 years.  

Try to be more calculated instead of flying on the whim of your seat.

You can train them easily by writing up a phone script.