It’s a cleaner, more reliable solution, and while the higher subscription cost can feel like a drawback, it’ll save you a lot of headaches and time in the long run.

My guess solely looking at your numbers is that it's an older/distressed property which means you have to account for more costs in capex. 2nd thought being it's not in the best of neighborhood then you'd have to take into consideration lower quality tenants/ neighbors and maybe increase expected vacancy and late payments.

They’re upfront about timelines, costs, and any hiccups that might pop up.

So either you pay for the repair out of the idle cash in your account, file an insurance claim and use those funds, or rollover/transfer funds from another retirement account to cover the cost. 

(after I deduct all the labor/material costs). 

It's the cash you put in that's your cost for the property. 

I think it was for down payment and closing costs.

We have an event this Saturday Feb 12, 2022, you can check out the Bigger Pockets page for it here:https://www.biggerpockets.com/...The group's page on Meetup.com is at:https://www.meetup.com/real-es...There is a $5.00 contribution which you can do in cash at the meeting as well, it doesn't come close to covering the cost of the space but I may be able to get another space shortly. 

(So unless they sell for much more than they paid they will only get a small percent of their down back, especially after selling costs,) but you did say they were getting a discount.

It's a good practice to overestimate costs and underestimate after-repair values (ARV) to keep your expectations realistic.