It may even be higher than 5% depending on the area. 

One strategy is to pursue properties (in your preferred markets) that have been listed for sale for over 90 days (even longer is better).

Even if you get something in escrow right away, it's still a 30-45 day escrow period before you would get paid, unless you are working with cash Buyers.  

@Olivia Blake how much money will you potentially lose by strong-arming a tenant and then having them break the lease early - or even just not renew?

I have one tenant who is a god send compared to most, he accomplishes nearly ever repair I need, even did an HVAC unit. 

There are not a ton of comps on Zillow or other websites that I have checked and it was last sold a while ago so even these resources are unable to give me a quote.  

@Robert Gorra - I've had a similar experience where I've had a really hard time with getting GC's to even give me an estimate, and the few that have have been way overpriced (ie, they want me to put in $20k of cabinets in a budget flip) or have had their prices go up by about 40% and still not give me a firm price when I try to nail down the scope of work.

But I'm getting a pass because the IRS does not verify and does not even ask.Don has a more difficult time with his auditor because he does not have Form 1098, and he does not want to show a form with my name on it, for obvious reasons.

Class D risks > Class C > Class B > Class A, but how many investors even know what those risks are, let alone know how to account for them in their ROI calculations?

They even sent someone from the city to the house to tell us to stop operating it as a STR.