Opinions will vary on this, but I never put a house on the market until it is totally complete with landscaping, final cleanup and staging completed.You only get one chance to make a good first impression with a buyer, you want the buyer to be noticing all the great features, you dont want them looking and noticing incomplete or unfinished items.We have had many of our houses sell first weekend on the market this past year.

Just not enough inventory, and what was there was getting bid up to ridiculous levels.We've spent the past year working on alternative methods of acquisition, and are finally starting to get some deals in the pipeline.

What i'm trying to figure out is what kind of metric I should be using for analysis since we aren't putting any money down on the houses we buy.

But they shouldn't be giving you ultimatums.Ultimately, you have to be the one that makes the final decisions on your deals.

I am heavily invested in the neighborhood and will do this to do my part in maintaining the area but from a pure financial analysis I would be better served by bulldozing the property.

He has had 3 offers, finally the bank approved the last one, (he struggled to prove hardship on his end etc) but this last offer backed out.

I have always been intererested in real estate and finally decided to jump in.

If you bump into the need for more complex formulas, like IRR(), you're probably moving from analysis to putting lipstick on a pig.

So, when the investor finally owns the REO and can achieve a 90% recovery of market value, why would they take a lesser amount?

My analysis paralysis combined with my abundance mentality is making me drag my feet.