I got a deal on labor as I know the contractor personally and helped out a bit with the project.

Personally, my primary residence has appreciated around 6% in market value and I live in Levittown. 

I am still personally buying rentals but I am not expecting much in the way of cash flow at the moment.

I personally started in my local real estate market in Columbus Ohio.

We will shop for used appliances where we can when we need one… or pick up used cabinets if we can, or search eBay for something smaller,  but going to the extreme of personally shipping something big in internationally for one-off renovation needs seems like a stretch of reasonable.Just like you mention, the number of unknowns would not seem to be worth it to me.Just my 2 cents.Randy  

If you make the person an LLC employee you can get around it, but partner does need to be careful. 

I would be fine with a $10k non-refundable retainer and $500/hr. personally.

The challenge was balancing the relationship between landlord/tenant and a personal/friendly relationship.

I personally would never invest somewhere that could outlaw rentals.

I've done enough personal home projects to know, if I find a deck company it'll be 2k, but a GC will charge me 2.5k to over see it...