This is my first purchase (don't want to do anything stupid) and the rents could swing 600/month depending on what I'm allowed to do in the basement - I'd be in the red from a cashflow perspective if I can't duplex them.Am I rolling the dice here / do you not typically find out for sure until you close and begin renovations?  

Due to personal faith based reason, I prefer to only invest in all cash deals that don't involve traditional financing (so typical passive RE options like syndications, RE funds with fixed returns, REITs etc are not a viable option for me).

First and foremost I have tried the typical solution of friends and family.

Typically it is asking too much for rent, but it could be your advertising is poor or your property is not in good condition for that area."

James, from a contractor's perspective I don't typically recommend re-facing cabinets.

Here in Hawaii, condotel (vacation rental condo) financing is different from typical condo financing, so important to work with a local lender.

An "owner's title policy" is purchased (typically) by the seller for benefit of the buyer. 

Sales agents typically don't have a lot of experience screening applications.

As for a lot of the "your returns will be better with more leverage" that is typically true if your unleveraged yield is higher than your cost of capital.  

How it typically works, you would have to come up with 20 percent.