What effects would a change to commercial bring?

You could ask him who is spending hundreds of millions, dare I say (Carl Sagan voice) billions of dollars on thousands of new residential apartments in San Francisco.

The cinder block turned my original 1 month timeline into 3 months, however it didn't effect my budget, obviously time is money so it did have an effect on my bottom line with the extra holding but I didn't come out of pocket any more then what I budgeted.I had no extra money to come out of pocket so I learned how to rehab a cinder block house.

In the end, it's important to properly value your time, and it's generally not effective for you to be doing hands on rehab work. 

One thing that I find really interesting is the statement " i did not provide them notification of this problem, hence they couldn't do anything about it".I would love a transcript of that or something in writing to that effect.

The RE market in the area you concentrate in is the best indicator, rents, average prices, particular neighborhoods, municipal growth, local economic conditions.When you have rising bond prices interest rates will follow, money tightens, loans can get to be a bit harder but the real effect is less buying power from the public.

But I want to prepare accordingly to make my first visit as effective as possible and make a good first impression.  

I am more than happy to listen to the voice/s of experience and learn from them but I will still go take a look and do my own investigations.

From there it was on, I was addicted, I listened to all of Tony Robbins courses, Think and Grow Rich, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People etc... but it wasn't until I finally read Rich Dad, Poor Dad in which I questioned the whole "work" thing.

I am trying to be pro active, learn and understand as much as possible to be an effective board member.