I'm not sure what your financing strategy is for your early phases, but it will save you time and money in the long run if you're familiar with all your options now.

You have to look at list price and see if they are over inflating, at market, or below market for current condition of the property being marketed for sale.Without knowing your current net worth, liquidity, annual profit income from job or business it is hard to comment further.For example if you have good cash coming in and want to create wealth you might be better off buying a new house in a new development going up phase zero (just dirt and pipes).

although I’m pretty familiar with everything outside of USDA.What I want to invest in:Right now I'm still in the research phase of my (fledgling) investing career but once I narrow down a few locations the plan is to start with a small SFR value add buy and hold.

I some Hard Money lenders require you to make the first draw out of pocket, but do any of you not issue payment until phase 1 is actually done (like not issuing the first draw out of pocket until demo is done).

Still in the contingency phase, and I found a better deal in the same area for a building that’s nearly identical to the one I’m in escrow for.

I'm not sure what your financing strategy is for your early phases, but it will save you time and money in the long run if you're familiar with all your options now. 

I'm in my education phase right now and I've determined that I want to start out with an FHA house hack (hopefully a 4 plex).

Instead of trying to grab financing at the purchase phase of our deals (which was leading to only finding deals that meet only our minimum requirements if at all)  we decided to go after deals with all cash where there was more value to be added and where cash could really give us a much better purchase price and resulted in the numbers we want (Cash on Cash / Cashflow). 

Just the design phase, drawings,engineering, permits, etc is going to be 10-20k depending on the scope.

My wife and I have been planning our first flip for months now, learning the basics of the planning phases, finding a Contractor, lining up my real estate agent, researching materials, etc.