The reality is he already had the animal as a pet, then applied online for the certification.

You had one desired outcome that was outside of the parameters of what we were able to make a reality.

Property is cheap and the numbers look good on paper, but I think reality hits a lot of people like a sledgehammer with turnover costs, vacancies, problematic renters, maintenance, etc.

Cap ex is not easy to absorb and the "excel pro-forma"  rarely materializes as reality. 

In reality what happens is you end up paying more for a "clean house" but because you are doing a flip people want new mechanicals (central air, 200 amp electric, pvc plumbing stack) so you end up doing a full gut or larger rehab then simple cosmetics and now your returns have shrunk.In your situation for your first investment I would be ok with a smaller return because of the experience gained, but for the next look for larger profit.

Going into this with blinders on and not understanding the risk that you could lose everything is reality and this happened to many 15 years ago. 

People say RE investing is ONLY about numbers, but in reality that's just not accurate in my opinion. 

So reality is, low %rates = problems on getting a buy and pricing issues. 

The reality is the opposite - if it's not in writing then the PMC doesn't have to provide the service or can charge extra for it!

@Diana Tran, in reality this is a pretty good counter offer.