I don’t want him to waste any more time and want to steer him in the right direction so he doesn’t have to suffer unnecessarily.

Who was the Marketing Guru to steer the ship?  

Kevin, I can help steer you into the right path if you can share your credit score and your capital situation.Hard to advise someone without knowing what tools they have to start with, and sometimes getting ready for deal 1 is what is needed to work on.Welcome!

However, most of the time he has the connection and discount and knows where to steer me.

And that usually steers me away from that zipcode because I have to imagine that my house can possibly be vacant for months as well. 

I didn't post it here because I don't want to steer off the topic (which is about wholesaling, whether it's coming to an end).

This will steer your research.Get to Know the Market:Check Property Values: See how property prices are moving in the areas you’re eyeing.

Most lenders will try to steer you away simply because they don’t know how to do them.

Sure it can be a write off, but my question is if it is the highest and best use of your time (or the given employees time) to be running a skid steer - transporting it, storage, maintenance, cleaning, etc, and if it still makes sense if you need to hire someone to run it for you and take care of the other things.Add up all those recurring costs - maintaining the machine, maintaining the trailer, having a large enough truck to tow it, insurance and registration for all of the above, your time or your employees time related to all of the above...even at $14k a year it might be attractive enough to keep paying that and having them drop it off at the job site for you.A brand new machine could easily cost you over 6 figures - that's 7 years of rentals at $14k/year before including all the holding costs. 

@Sean Kirk As someone who owns a Property Management company in Birmingham and has experience working with both Turnkey providers and Value Add investors, I’d recommend steering clear of Turnkey properties.While Turnkey properties offer a lower barrier to entry, they also come with much lower rewards.