Even though I had rented out apartments many times before at my job, its different when its your very own property.  

I would be looking to get it at a low enough price, along with the home improvements done after purchase (also with 15%-20% down) to take out a home equity line of credit.

I am living proof that you can start with little money and knowledge and make it big if you study, improve and persevere.

(b) Leases or rents or offers to lease or rent, or places for rent, or solicits listings of places for rent, or solicits for prospective tenants, or negotiates the sale, purchase or exchanges of leases on real property, or on a business opportunity, or collects rents from real property, or improvements thereon, or from business opportunities. 

I spoke to the appraiser who appraised my building 2 years ago when I was first going through the purchase transaction and he states that too many banks have been burned on using the cost approach with people paying too much or over-improving their investments which has caused most people in the industry to only use sales and income approaches to properly appraise a property.

Hi Raj Pandian Great job getting started here on BP.

It turned into a bigger job and this contractor was terrible.  

What we do have is a fairly steady job market compared to other areas and abundant liquidity looking for yield.

This makes it really hard for a person to a day job to compete against these full time investors.In the meantime, will be looking outside the metroplex for better returns and less gimmick.

On a job that large, you should have multiple bidders if you're not using a contractor that you use all the time.