@Rhonda Chesley As long as you have no balance on the HELOC it should not affect your purchasing power for conventional loans. 

For the most part he has done that, but he also bought major tools to do the work such as a miter saw ($400) and a power painter ($320).

@Philip Williams you are an example of the power of taking action!

Indexing is only powerful in the bull market cycle, not in a bear market cycle that we are currently in.

And the City of Philadelphia also requires that the battery powered detectors be equipped with 10 year batteries that are sealed in the unit.  

GREAT, more power to them. 

I actually don't think that a 40% labor cost is too awful for the first few months, obviously you can't stay there for the long term and make money, but my theory was always to have some extra labor around until you really get to know when your rushes will exactly be coming and to help deal with the inevitable unexpected surprises that will always pop up when starting up a new place.

From my FNMA broker friend, the power tripping asset managers LOVE to play hardball at every turn, but it is certainly possible to get price reductions at inspection.

Shoot that into the concrete with one of the 22 powered nail guns.

In my comments I told them that they could easily have eliminated that one from the tour and concentrated more on the price range that was in most of the group's power curve.IMO most of these were overpriced although there were two that I'm interested enough to put in my data base and follow up on.