i know properties that have increased in value over 100% in two years.

I wrote a blog post about some things you can do to increase your odds: http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2012/05/27/financing-first-real-estate-deal-pitch-new-business-banks/If indeed you cannot get bank financing, figure out what it takes.

Treat them right, give them a decent well maintained home and you can have a very long term tenant with rent increases as market rents go up.

Most of the valley has been experiencing sale price increases since spring 2012 due to inventory shortages and continued strong demand.

The part of the equation that we don't have is the terms of the mortgage, if there are not too many years left of them based upon a low interest rate and there is equity in the property then it could be attractive from the scenario you reference of owning the properties with minimal money out of your own pocket and then trying to refinance once you've owned it a year to a mortgage with longer amoritization to increase your cash flow

(CaliforniaMortgageAssociation.com)So, as rehabbers and investors become an increasingly important part of our borrower base, I'm very interested in the comments of investors, rehabbers and the general BP poster/readership as to how we can improve our perception in the marketplace.Keeping in mind that we're just CALIFORNIA, we can still learn from the comments of Bill G., (who is not in Calif.) and the others who were kind enough to share.Obviously, being a trade association, we consider ourselves the "white hat" guys and already believe we are doing things correctly, but we know even our practices can be greatly improved.

That's with no appreciation or increase in rent, not the long term trends in the NY metro area.

So, those new carpets that are being depreciated over five years get a big lump of depreciation at three years when they're totally trashed.So, those new carpets increase your basis in the year you put them in.

I also believe it would take longer to sell than a similar product in the middle of the community so that would increase your costs even more.

The big issue you'll run into is that, if your end-buyer is getting a loan, the lender will do an appraisal, and the appraiser will want to see that improvements were made to justify the increase in price at resale.