Currently, the contractor is demanding $44K upfront to resume work and complete the occupancy permit, promising to discuss the additional costs afterward.

Don't do what a friend did and buy as many crappy properties as quickly as possible. 

Yes, even during the festive season, the real estate world doesn’t take a break.Let me share two stories that drive home the importance of acting quickly in this business.The $40k Christmas Miracle: A few Christmas mornings ago, one of our rockstar team members, was enjoying some holiday downtime with his family.

After purchase the assessment office was given the survey and quickly reduced the acreage for taxation to 1.8 acres also. 

If they are professional, they can explain this quickly and easily.

I’ve had several investor clients go with a new (to me)/ unproven lender because of a slightly lower rate promise only to get burned by that lender (closing costs were higher, appraisal costs much higher and appraisal was a nightmare, main point of contact gave us the clear to close as we passed our financing contingency then just before closing someone from the underwriting department we previously didn’t know existed said we need a few more days and seller didn’t agree because they had a higher backup offer, jeopardizing the earnest money and losing the property, etc).

Now you might be like Joe, know rents for a couple of neighborhoods and can quickly estimate expected cash flow from properties pretty quickly (that's what I do as well) but you still need a screening rule so you invest minimal times on properties you will never put an offer in on. 

Our relationship was getting back on track but I had some resentment from the demon years.2nd year similar to first.  3rd year was looking promising then University California TA strike.  3 years in and no way he could graduate in bio but could graduate in his hobby of German.  

This is where real estate investing turns into a great area and on paper investment strategies seem great, but when applying them to reality, things can quickly change.

Are you scaling quickly or focusing on steady, long-term growth?