I cut off PMs that constantly try to find ways to add revenues by what I call trickery; selling some 3rd party service that they have contracted to all their clients, recommending small fixes turn into large one's,etc, make it difficult to get 2nd opinions. 

That's where many cut their teeth in the business. 

That could be market knowledge, ability to rehab a property - something that can give you an edge over other experienced RE professionals in the market and asset class you are working in. 

The 50% is rather deep a cut, especially with all the additional operational expenses not included into that 50%.

As for funding, hard money can cut into profits, but it’s useful for scaling quickly.

Hire a licensed and insured electrician there are codes that are in place to protect people and property it is a safety risk that you should not cut corners to save a few dollars on.

I am summarizing all of this and may be missing details.Extreme cost cutting mode is what Jorge opened up with.

A huge number of properties we have looked at would have issues on this front.It can lead to an opportunity to improve the value of a property if you can buy it with an illegal area, get that area legalised and then sell on with a higher value that the bank would lend against, but it's not clear cut and it seems though that there are almost two levels of 'legalisation' - we were able to register all of the annex on the plans and could fully incorporate a portion of it but there is another portion that is too close to the back boundary wall that should only be used for things like storage and not ever for habitation. 2) During the purchase process be careful, amongst other issues with this property we had the situation where the seller's lawyer was not actually a lawyer (having been struck off).

A Cut Above lawn and landscape out of Andover is run by my partner Andrew.

You can say a knife is dangerous because it can cut yourself with it.