She owns a PM company and she is also a licensed contractor because she was tired of GC's ripping her off. 

The hard money lender I worked with was instrumental in closing quickly, and I partnered with a fantastic general contractor who helped me stay on track despite the challenges.

The hard money lender I worked with was instrumental in closing quickly, and I partnered with a fantastic general contractor who helped me stay on track despite the challenges.

This is a picture was taken 2 days ago by my contractor in front of my property.So long story short Derek, there are more than just financial returns as to why people invest.  

If you have the electrical capacity and the drain I would spend the $1600-$1,800 to buy the MUCH nicer ventless GE or LG all in one units.

Confirm that the warranty applies to the type of property you own and consider whether the annual cost and service call fees make sense compared to just handling repairs yourself or using your own trusted contractors.

I wondered about using your own vendors, here's what I found:"Currently, you cannot directly add your own contractors to Lula's network.

many houses in the midwest, for example, are very old and need major rehabs.i personally think out of state investing is more difficult than advertised, and much more difficult in the current investing environment, with: prices high; interest rates high; tremendous demand for inventory, by both investors and retail buyers; and good PMs, contractors, etc. booked up.here's a really thoughtful thread with the experience of another CA investor and lots of different responses:https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/1215726-break...and here are some threads about how it can very easily go wrong:https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/1159104-overl...https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/963/topics/1195280-expe...https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/1160450-run-i...https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/1137397-balti...finally, you also said you "don't have a lot of money to start with." 

3) Dealing with Contractors: guess you found it's not as easy as the "gurus" make it out to be. 4) S8 slightly above.guarateed Rents: typical naive mistake.

You can read a book and multiple books, but unless you are out there doing it (I.e. getting bids and getting contractors to truly get you an exact estimate) you will be far off from the numbers you want and may even lose money on the flip/rehab.The best advice I would suggest in my experience is that you should get into the line of work by either partnering with someone or working with someone on some projects prior to going into a flip on your own.