They did it without a forum to ask questions, no podcasts to listen to, no formulas and calculators.

Does anyone have a trusty renovation/construction estimate calculator or guide they use for our market? 

So, if your aren't counting them in your calculations here then your cashflow is probably $255 LESS (assuming 5% budgeted for each) for a new cashflow of $245.

Stop the blaming game and the scarcity mindset, there are plenty of deals to go around. good all around post.. only thing I slightly disagree with is having your agent look at every deal your looking at.. that would have the agent bogged down with busy work.. the investor should know what a deal is by just the big numbers.. they dont need to run calculators on simple rentals use 50% of gross income for expenses to start.. if you do better fine .. but if it does not cut it 50% or a little lower then its no go .. and on to the next.. 

I would like to find tax strategies to reduce my taxable income.

I wish there is an example showing how to calculate and how depreciation recapture is applied.

Crunch the numbers - Carefully calculate potential cash flow, ROI, and cap rate.

Appfolio lets you pull credit reports, calculate if income is met, etc... 

Some contractors have insurance, some are 1 man band with no overhead, quality of work factors into cost, level of finishes.We created a calculator for our clients to use here in Chicago, specific to our renovation pricing, but even that is just a guess based on some assumptions.If you can find a quality general contractor, pay them like @Bruce Woodruff mentioned, and it will make your life so much easier...you may eat into some of your profits, but being able to rinse and repeat with someone you trust is priceless!

You can use that number to calculate the annualized % yield and track it over time.