You won't find any good deals in those areas and if you want to invest in those areas be prepared to spend top dollar.

Spend some time on here for free.  

The best brokers spend their time brokering.

@Neal Downey the first will be a 2 hr session and then sell you a 3 day seminar for 200 for 2 people, if you are looking for inspiration, enough info to make you dangerous and looking to spend 35k you will find it there.

Non-refundable means even if you didn't spend the time or money on the application you keep it.

With that broad parameters they set, I am planning to put a cap on finishes as part of the proposal, say for tiles it will not exceed $2.00/sq ft on the finish material (grouts, mortar and etc not included as finish material and represent tile only), or give out colors on the countertop (ie gallo lines), so they would not choose anything expensive, basically I will be setting cap spending on top materials.

As a future grad student I'll assume you'll do your research before spending your money.  

But a payment of $450 a month, I'd spend the $15.00.

I spend more than that on booze in a month.

I spend most of my time meeting wholesalers and agents.