Would be interested to hear what the experts think of each of these: (1) what's the best way to accurately estimate cap ex/repairs so you can figure out if a deal warrants making an offer in the first place, and (2) any reason to think past financials do not reasonably well predict future costs?

so is there anyway to predict what would be the taxes?

HI Ken,The primary you can go up to 85-90% LTV of the current appraisal value with interest only payments on a HELOC.The rental's you can get HELOC's as well but only from local community, commercial, or credit unions like penfed.org up to 70-80% LTV around mid 5's.You never go to big banks to ask them about HELOC's as the answer is predictably, NO.HELOC is great if you're going to draw money out and replace it relatively quickly since you only pay interest when the funds are being used.

Minus a global economic collapse that none of us can predict, I don't see this market changing.

I hesitate to "predict" because anything can happen at anytime.

This can't really be predicted as far as I understand, so it's a risk.

I think you hit on it - I set a goal for a certain # of properties in the beginning because I needed to start somewhere ... and hell, how could I predict what I would make off them?

Agreed with this...I think many markets won't see a bump until next Spring, but I'm not sure that there is a lot of room to drop except in the big markets that saw a huge run-up the last decade.So, for many markets (including my own), I predict small declines for the next 12 months and then a long, slow recovery...

Now, its hard to make predictions, especially about the future, but I'm pretty confident we're NOT going to see this appreciation.

While I cannot predict the likelihood of your getting caught, I can predict what will happen if you are caught and it won't be pleasant.I was going to just ignore this thread until my name was used.