Petersburg is allowing property owners with cetain size backyard lots to add ancillary structures for rental purposes - especially for Section 8 tenants - and the City of Tampa has been trying to get this going as well. 

Cosmetic vs. structural updates?

For a first flip, most investors do best with simple cosmetic rehabs in median-price, high-demand neighborhoods, avoiding heavy structural or layout changes.

You may need to structure the lease differently than renting by the room if you will need the rental income to qualify.

In those situations, the lender was comfortable since the overall leverage still made sense and the seller note was subordinated.This is structured with the first lien on a 30 year fixed amortization, with the seller note set up as shorter than 30 years.

You can get really creative with different structures as well (am schedule, PPP, I/O, buydown, etc,) very creative and fun loan product for investors!

The deal was not structured to withstand adverse market conditions. 

The key is building a simple structure so you’re managing a system, not individual emergencies.A few things that usually help:Have one clear intake method for tenants (portal, email, or form) so requests don’t come through texts, calls, and random channels.

I recently worked with a California homeowner who completed a 1031 exchange into two long-term rental properties in the Grand Rapids, MI area.The goal was to reposition equity from a higher-cost market into Midwest rentals with more stable cash flow, while coordinating both acquisitions and financing remotely.We focused on rent-ready properties rather than heavy rehabs, and structured the purchases together to keep timelines aligned and reduce execution risk.Curious what others are seeing right now in Grand Rapids in terms of pricing, rent-to-value ratios, or investor demand compared to prior years.

Are you leaning more toward holding all properties under one LLC or structuring them individually?