In some areas there are incentives for creating affordable housing and even special voucher programs for housing vets.

It took us years of researching, studying, taking losses, learning tactics and building relationships with neighbors & police in certain areas.

As soon as you close get an insurance policy to protect you in case of a loss.  

I think I made a nice profit; I got more than 5-times my original investment I think I got hosed a little when selling, but the profit was still very good and the experience was worth it's weight in gold...Just stirring up the memory makes me want to go find another deal now and get to work again building a team and conquer another project!

Next, and what I say will always be weighted towards what I know so forgive me if it's another mortgage thing, coming this summer PITI reserve requirements will change for REI.

@Nicholas Almgren, @Conor Hesch has a program with U.S.

He is THE Storage Guy and has a great program.  

I performed the programming behind this one: estimatingrepairs.net

@Joel OwensI feel like I should pay you for the advice you have given me.I understand that research and knowing your market is key, and I hope my background in advanced statistical analyses will be able to give me an edge is some way since I have access to programs a lot of other real estate agents do not have.I'm actually working on a quick-fix analyses sheet and would love to share it with you afterwards and see what you think of it.Oren K.I definitely want to work with investors.I understand that each sale will be harder, the commissions will be smaller and the research will be more extensive.

Greg,Interesting question, CAPEX ,Maintenance and Vacancy figures are in the analysis to cover the seasonal cost,any major projects that will come up and costs that you will occur while an apartment is vacant, but as to figure in at a certain year and how much you need to set aside and what your exact holding costs will be for an apartment while under rehab, i have not seen a calculator out there that has that, i do not know if there is a software program out there that may do that, hopefully someone does for you.