That would several thousand dollars.

That is, unless investors are now willing to pay more than the 1% rule used to dictate.I know it will cost some time and money to get them vacant and fixed up, but the alternative seems to be to leave 10s of thousands of dollars on the table.

Like with any RE investment a thousand things could go wrong.

Can you imagine getting outbid by a couple hundred thousand on your dream home.

I can tell you from personal experience that it’s helped my wife and I save and make thousands of dollars.

I've bought a few SFH and in Florida and they only up several hundred (a thousand max) in a year.Also, I don't think there's any way for a SFH or Duplex to make $5k per month cash flow, so are you referring to 8+ unit apartments?

I'd bet there are thousands of people out there willing to do it.And another option, which you already mentioned, is a VA. 

The cash-out refi necessarily means thousands of dollars in additional expenses - likely setting you back further than you went forward in mortgage pay down during the same time period if refinancing in 1-2 years - but hopefully earning more equity in the meantime (fingers crossed).  

The literally single biggest mistake that people make is to buy a class D property, because it was cheap to begin with, 90+ days on market and they were able to negotiate a "discount" - ask them a year later how that worked out for them. 

I ended up paying 25K and they hauled out 120 thousand pounds of trash.