You're risking liability exposure if you don't address this promptly.Stop pinching pennies which could cost you $Thousands!

If anything goes sideways like an unexpected large maintenance expense, unexpected vacancy, tenant stops paying, etc. you could find yourself in a pinch real quick.Agree with save up some money for reserves first, then for the down payment and look for your next deal.

If your good at keeping rehab costs down maybe you can afford to pay a pinch over 70% of ARV , I see so many people get stuck on that and never pull a trigger.

Investors owning the one house are now feeling pinched with their own house they live in and contemplate defaulting on the mortgage.

Rehabbing from afar is a recipe for disaster in my opinionWe sometimes still loose our A$$ to this day and our office is within a 5 min drive of most of our properties Just had someone "pinch" $32,000 from us not long agoFirst time we filed a report and a civil suitUsually we just "dismiss it" as the cost of doing businessThus far that cost has creeped into the high 6 figure range over the years lolJust my opinion off course

Hi Andrea,Just wanted to chime in quickly with my 0.02 Australian cents.You have received some great advice from the prior folks that commented and here is mine :)We have done so many deals in Toledo that I stopped counting at 500 lolOne thing that we have not yet figured out is "contractors".We have lost millions to these folks and experience has lead me to believe that it's just the "cost of doing business" in this market.So many just like you have tried to do flip from afar and have done so very unsuccessfully (Many come crying back to us and begging for help).The others tend to have delay after delay with big over-budget costs just to complete the job so it would have been better paying full asking price for an already renovated property.I know of only a few investors doing it well and even they still have someone on the ground that is pinching pennies from them (No where near to the degree of what some contractors do so I guess you could call it a "win/win")Spend more time conducting due diligence on building a team you can trust rather than focusing on the various areas/zip codes.Visit the market multiple times and "shake hands/kiss babies" by meeting with as many people as you can.You need a real estate agent, property manager, contractors, maintenance person, attorney, accountant, title company and mentor just to name a few.Nothing comes quick and easy in life and neither does investing in real estate successfully.Finding the above folks could take you years but don't rush because there is nothing to miss out on in my opinion.The Midwest (Especially Toledo) tends to be a boring and slow moving market.Thanks and I hope my comment helped.I wish you much success

In any case, the Sellers expense report will most likely look different from your operations, so take it with a pinch of salt. 

Our opinion is your friend is pinching pennies too hard!

It would be great to keep that extra cash flow until things start going sideways and I get in a pinch.

This was a ton of work and luckily we are both pretty well versed in such things.Because we did almost all of the work on this ourselves, carefully sourced the labor for those things we needed help on and purchased materials in the most penny pinching method you can imagine, our total rehab costs were $14,568.36 making our total investment $27,729.26.This was a very tough neighborhood but one that did have a good number of owner/occupants scattered among a fair number of renters.