@Manolo D. we were definitely happy with the overall outcome. the GC we used did a great job. we plan on using his crew again on our next property if possible. however, I'm guessing you're referring to my other discussion about rehab costs from my contractor. we were happy with the outcome of this project but I don't have anything to compare this to. the fact of the matter is we don't know if his prices were fair for the market. we were in very unique circumstances on the last project where we had flexibility with our budget, so even if he charged more than the competition we still came out on top. moving forward we need to know more details. we are currently making offers on properties in need of rehab and we're using this GC's quote to help us budget for our max offer. if we can use him and still make a competitive offer then we will but we are getting beat by other offers. we just need to analyze all factors to see what we can change in order to compete. the two main concerns are that we are up against other investors making cash offers so they have no loan contingency and no mortgage payments inflating their holding costs, plus they probably have cheaper labor and material costs. so, we're just trying to analyze everything. our GC did a great job, only went slightly over budget compared to his original estimate, but we did plan for contingency and I ended up doing a lot of the work, so we were overall under budget, and he offered the quality of work we were happy with.

For me personally, I'm almost two years out from purchasing my first duplex and would rather invest savings in a low cost S&P 500 ETF than lose to inflation in a traditional savings account.

Most likely your father would not owe any gift tax, assuming he hasn't used his lifetime exemption (indexed for inflation, currently around 5.5 million).

Some of the rehab numbers I have priced directly and others are based on a wholesaler estimate (I have inflated those based on personal knowledge).

I know part of it was an increase of interest rate, but I think it is more of a market speculation where most people believe the market is inflated at the moment and wait for an adjustment.

Normally you should call the police, but it may not be worth it and will inflate an issue that most likly is going to go away by itself once you have rented your property.  

If only for 1-2 years and you want to be safe, 2 suggestion:1) TIPS bond funds (Treasury Inflation Protected Security)

On the first purchase we made, they took a lot of section 8 tenants to inflate the rents and we ultimately decided some of those tenants were destroying the property so we lowered the rent to attract the right tenants and once we had the bad ones out, we slowly moved the rents back up.

Due to inflation, money will be worth less in 10 years. 

The DP artificially inflates cash flow therefor it must be remove from the equation to separate cash flow generated by the property from that purchased with their cash.