If I get my equity is it better to buy a property outright or spread it over a few down payments?  

This assumes you contract deals with legit spreads of course.notherwise, you will only be able to dump them off yo rookies and ignorant buyers.Your motivated seller leads are the base of your business, without these, you have no acquisitions.

If he sells to you on contract he can spread that tax liability out. 

if so, i would dig next to it to see how deep it is, it needs to be at least 18" to 24" deep, this is a barrier that keeps it from spreading past that. you will also just want to check for off shoots/ roots that may be going over the barrier, just trim them back. if the barrier is that deep and you keep the off shoots back you will be fine.

Basically, where is your spread, nothing wrong with having one by the way.

The more you have the more you can lend...the old "it takes money to make money rule" BUT...if you borrow OPM and lend it out then you can use theirs to make the spread.

@Giacinto L.With ARV at 200K, and rehab at 40K, your MAO will be:MAO=70% ARV- Rehab costs = 140K-40K = 100KAt 178K, you are at 18K loss, and no spread for the flipper.

Currently I have a townhouse for sale (under contract) and the spread was not that great.

Your worries about finding deals with enough equity spread may be an indicator that you need to continue to educate yourself.

I thank you all for spreading the knowledge and love to newbies like myself.