And real estate property purchased from someone who is behind on mortgage payments is construed as 'equity skimming' and therefore may be illegal.Can someone please clear this up for me?

My advice: budget 10% but read the PM contract, all of it, don't skim it, and compile a list of questions prior to vetting PMs.

I have skimmed through it but havent finished.  

I'm not trying to milk it, I just want to keep the maintenance costs down.

Cant cry over spilled milk I guess.

No need crying over spilled milk, im ready to cut my losses and begin paying off that education by wholesaling to build up cashflow then flipping.

I feel like its fairly simple--spray the ceiling w/ some water and scrape down the texture. then skim where you need to and paint it flatI ask bc I've gotten 4 quotes:-$500 to scrape and skim if needed-$400 to scrape and up to $300 to finish/skim-$1750 to scrape and skim 2 coates-$1375 to scrape and skim Such a huge gap. is there enough to mess up here that i'd need to pay over $700 for 865' of ceiling to scrape and skim?

I currently rent it for $1,100 but was thinking of selling it so I can invest in a higher end house, I bought it for $29K, put $45K, my realtor estimates I can sell it for $90K which is to low for me, I might be able to take 100K after closing costs and commissions so selling might not happen, I will probably just milk the cow for a long time or one other possible option is to turn it into a vacation rental (which I'm very experienced by now).The renter leaving just came to me asking about Rent To Own, just started reading about it because I had no idea how that worked.

Just re-read the thread because I only skimmed random parts of it.

to jab at wholesalers who don't skim deals off the top to build passive income because they are under-capitalized.