One my brother finishes school, I may sell that home and turn the equity into 1-2 more houses. 

If I'm going to spend 50k on a rehab and all the time involved with doing so, I'm certainly going to back sure there's equity when I'm finished.

Achieving economies of scale may best be attained through volume, but learning how to do it on a small scale will pay generous dividends later; pitching the concept to investors will be much easier when you can show concrete results, and extrapolate from those results instead of being forced to rely solely on projections from a concept.

If there is a finished basement in the house.

Well done on those finishes. 

The one I just finished up is financed through a local bank at 20 years and 6.5%.  

If you approve all the colors and finishes, you should be in good shape.  

I am in the process of finishing real estate school to get a better understanding of what I'm getting into. 

By stage 4 when the subdivision is almost finished you tend to have the least equity gain buying then. 

I found one that sold for $255k in Jan 2016 with a fully finished basement.