My day job is Avionics Software Engineer, so I am trying to learn how one evaluates such commercial properties and how one obtains factual information to based investment decision on such class of properties.The broker who proposed this purchase provided nice graphs with comparable curves of average vs. the property metrics, such as prices per sq.ft, vacancy, price per unit etc.However, the report is missing correlation to a specific properties the comparison is based on.Am I being unreasonable by asking comp information that is customary for SFR and low count multi?

nice looks like a ton of people wrote listings with a 12/31 expiration

Originally posted by @Jon Klaus: Put them on your credit card, get the miles, and pay off the card.I don't do miles, but always on the card and get the associated "rewards".Also just got a few new business lines with 18 month 0% so it would have been nice to get a big tax deduction in 2013 that I wouldn't have to actually pay until 2015

Unfortunately my b.p. has a nice income but terrible credit, and I have no proof of income but a 720 credit score, so we have decided on using HML, and possibly having to pay reno costs out of our own pocket, while we deal with that.

Welcome to BP @Shane Keck ,Nice to see another Washingtonian join the community.

I have this dilemma right now, I have a rental in a nice middle class neighborhood, a 4/2 home, (Oak Park close to Berkley for the michiganders), probably can get $1,500 - $1,600 a month for rent, we are replacing the cabinets, granite and putting stainless steel appliances, the connection is for electric but have thought about putting a gas burner instead of electric, would you think it would be a good idea to turn it to gas?

Personally, I wouldn't put the money in a stock/ETF or bond fund unless my time horizon was 5+ years to need the money, but I think one year is the right amount of time to start being concerned about the money just sitting around.Btw, if the number is right about a year, perhaps consider making a loan or two to other investors...

It's nice to have a business justification for a toy investment.

I have collected a nice amount of leads from obituaries and plan on marketing to them.

While we hope to someday go for students to get the higher income they bring, we want to start by seeing if we can get a family in the upstairs unit of one 2-family - especially given the nicely renovated condition and unusual combination of central location linked to top suburban school district as a possible attractor.Being new to this, I've spent the past few days reading a lot of info on this site to get educated on the rental process - very helpful.