First and foremost I feel you pain and frustration.

As painful as it is to cover up oak with paint, i’d probably do that before I tore it out and used mdf mouldings.

Any other solution just saves up-front costs but is more painful down the road.

I did about 35 buy/fix/sell/rent houses in Ohio over the years and got bogged down in repairs, repair people problems and budget problems.How much fix up do you think is worthy and doable before a project gets to be a real pain?

I heard the insurance can also be a real pain due to the hurricanes etc.Anyone with experience in either/both the FL & CA market that can weigh in on this?

The first one was painful. 

To do so would make it extremely painful to run your business effectively.

@Eric Gutierrez I feel your pain

Think of it this way:Snag a house in the hottest market in the country --> pain to finance (HML or otherwise) ---> can't/barely afford payments ---> try to hurry the fix n' flip process ---> make rookie mistakes under pressure ---> waste time, money and resources.Either your mentor is ripping you off OR you did not understand his system by asking the right questions.

The agent told me it is a pain to move a post office and no benefit for them to sign up for the extra work involved.