When a contractor "screws you over" usually it's because he bit off more than he could chew and is too prideful to acknowledge it and also isn't good with managing money to be able to eat the cost.

How do I find an accountant that won't eat all of our profits?

I generally have 5-10 deals going on at a time, which eats up a lot of capital. 

If honorable folks need to eat, they'll go back to work.

I'm anticipating I'll be eating the cost.

That 20% down eats up a good chunk of my planned initial outlay.

Once i resigned, i took the past 3-4 months traveling Europe and SEA with my wife (but honestly thinking about real estate and listening to the BiggerPockets podcast aside from eating) before moving to Seattle.I’ve been listening to the BP podcast for over 2yrs now and am finally moving forward to taking the first step in real estate investing.

My first time analyzing a condo/townhome, and it seems the HOA eats up all the cash flow, so now sure if I'm just not finding the right property for it to work or if I'm missing something.

Don't forget that you will have to refi and you want to do it sooner rather than later or the HML rate and fees will eat you alive.

Sounds like they want their cake, your cake and everyone else's cake and will eat it too.