Well,the interior looks lovely but,the exterior paint is wrong and it sticks out like a sore thumb.Something darker that goes with the two much taller buildings you're sandwiched between would have been better.You made some mistakes that are going to cost you like they did me too.First,you decorated the interior to please yourself as if you were going to live there,not good.Way ,way,too expensive for the neighborhood.No one is going to pay you tens of thousands extra for having nice taste in fixtures and finishes.You are also surrounded by multi family rental properties instead of lovely single family homes which is where your place belongs if you could magically move it.Honestly,you missed a golden opportunity to make some good money by not just gutting but hiring an architect and redesigning it into a triplex or quad.A good landlord business would have paid you a handsome profit for a modern designed quad with affordable and nice fixtures.Your initial asking price was way too high and the real estate agent should have talked you out of it.Now you have 161 shoppers on Zillow with only a few of them real buyers waiting you out to see how low will you go.Their buyer's agents are sensing the desperation and waiting to drop the hammer on you.I went through this same terrible thing just recently and lost 85k when the bloodbath finally was over.I am afraid you need to prepare yourself for the same thing.If I am wrong about the address,pay me no mind and good luck to you.

They are getting hammered with properties sitting unrented, properties going vacant after only a couple of months, rampant theft at vacant properties, repair costs every month because they made the decision to go cheap on the front end.This is a very familiar story and many individual investors have lost a lot of money due to these same poor decisions.

His workers will need to be paid and we'll have materials costs, and we haven't discussed yet if all that will be at cost or with a general contractor's markup (we will when we sit down to hammer out the partnership, which is why I'm soliciting advice!).

I think what U will find is your not the only one with this idea.. someone in default will over the course of their foreclosure get HAMMERED with direct mailthe bank will be talking to them sending them letters pretty much weekly. people like you will be drilling them.. so competition is fierce.. at least it used to be in our market before the laws changed.. but not everyone knows the laws or follows them.Bottom line though this I know is true having bought hundreds of these.. homeowners are in massive denial.. they are not motivated until usually the 9th hour.. you can find an occasional one that will react early in the process.. but usually that reaction is to list it and sell it.. now if your in an area that has limited sale activity to homeowners  and most the transactions are to investors for rentals.. that would be a leg up.. as those areas are dominated by wholesalers..

@Lynn Hammers, In calculating DTI lenders use monthly mortgage payments, taxes, homeowner association  fees, and insurance premiums. 

Second floor we will need to add a 250 sqft addition which will bump out the existing living room, add another bedroom and convert an existing pantry into a laundry room.I plan to have the first hammer swung in March for about a week to do all the framing and rough plumbing, rough electric.

As the new owner now is the time to drop the hammer.

Something like that.My problem is, I've never hired a contractor before, nor even used a hammer, and the only time I've used a drill was 6 months ago to drill into plant pots for drainage holes.I've had a GC contractor and quote me a price that I could literally scrap the house and rebuild the entire thing, it was so expensive.Could I have a rehabber here in vegas, come over, look at the place and tell me what they think it should cost, how I could pick up a hammer, try not to hurt myself, to cut down on labor, and estimate how much it should REALLY cost?

I certainly don't think contractors have a disease - well maybe an affinity towards a broken in hammer (might just be my contractor though... he loves that hammer) - and I agree in that my main concerns are mostly related towards a professional arrangement between partners with full disclosure.

@Diane G.Just don't be scared to get things into escrow and then hammer them down like a tent peg.