I have also negotiated escrow fee charges down on many, many occassions.Your negotiation skills do not end at acquisition of contracts, they go beyond that, so use them!

If any of you have any skills, try to leverage those.You may have to make some serious and very painful adjustments.

Focus on acquiring skills that have a higher value in the marketplace than working in retail does.

Though like you said, if they don't have the skill to do it themselves, they'll need to hire someone...and that gets more expensive (since you need to pay for it on each home, instead of just buying the furniture once).

My wife doesn't like my interior decorating skills (I had an 08/15 Maxim on a sled in the living room at one time)...and she will not like me putting this stuff all over the bedroom walls.

Deals seem to be MUCH easier to find there however, but I have no shortage of determination and I know I really just need to get that first deal to get me going and I have no doubt I have the knowledge, skills, and determination to become very sucessfull.I appreciate all the feedback and offered motivation but what I really need is a direction of where to start.

My phone is ringing but my skills in this are a bit green.

The association didn't want to run the cables outside of the building because of aesthetic value.

Even though you may not have a ton of money/credit to offer a mentor/partnership, your contracting skills/knowledge are certainly valuable.

If he had called first (especially at night), and I believed he had the skills to do the change out, I would have given him the go ahead and instructed him to buy a better knob!