Fees should be clearly stated, easy to understand, and justifiable.

Fees should be clearly stated, easy to understand, and justifiable.

Deals are HARD to find so it's hard to justify selling anything. 

In the lender's eyes, they find it hard to justify a property whose value increased significantly within a short period of time.

The difference between what you can get for free and what you would be paying for is not anywhere near big enough to justify the spend IMO.  

So while I wait for the City and go back and forth with them on getting the plans approved, I've got my next set of steps in sight. 1) Try to get comps of properties recently sold in the Area2) Use said comps to justify a "Future Value Appraisal" by the Appraiser; I need the property to appraise > 1.4 mil3) Obtain Bids from Contractors and select one (really nervous about this)4) Close on the Loan and start interest payments while waiting for city approval. 5) Find partners or more money to close on similar properties and start the process over again. =)

It's a few grand a year (at minimum) to maintain a license -- the usual advice is if you're not either 1. selling as a full time job, or 2. doing enough volume to justify holding a license, then it's probably best to just hire a great agent that does it all full-time -- you'll get better negotiation and a better knowledge base.  

Stay away from the ones that you are trying to justify in your head.

Also, if they can get high interest rate by lending in the US or Canada, think about how much more they'd have to charge you in interest rates to justify the additional risk.

That would justify a lower return.Your comment about the lifestyle option is spot on.