Estimating repairs during prelim analysis

[Miles Stanley]

Hello BP,

I've been looking around the forums and reading book after book after article after post, etc and am having difficulty bridging the gap on something.

When perusing potential deals and performing quick analyses to see if the investment is really worth looking at deeper, how do you generally estimate any needed repair costs from few or no photos and without physically visiting the property?

for example, I've seen several "How to analyze deals" webinars and posts and when it comes to this portion it seems like a random number is assumed for repairs.

obviously once you get the property under contract you can have it inspected and get quotes from contractors, etc and so forth, but what about ahead of time?

Trying to get my first deal under my belt and brushing up on my analysis skills, but this is giving me heartburn...maybe I'm overthinking.

Thanks!