My partner called the owner who had give the original estimate, said no way are we paying until the job is done. 

Also if anyone can explain how much I should have saved to get started and a rough estimate of how many single families I should have before moving on to small apartment complexes etc.If you have read this far I greatly appreciate it, thank you so much!

I put property taxes 6k/year on each(Even though that's way higher then what it actually is, but the county tax estimate says its around that much for each) and for insurance, I just put 1,100/year on each.If there's more info needed let me know.

If a variance is needed, they're estimating 3-6 months, up to a year potentially. 

Quote from @Mike Sfera: for a duplex, is the BP rent estimate for per unit of combined?

What is your estimated rental revenue for LTR Vs.

He only gave me an estimate (doesn't show work completed) for $5,000, even though the repairs were stated to cost $15,000, he said he lost other documents, when I ask him to retrieve them or allow me to retrieve them from repair company he won't.

So what I'm asking is if there's a better way to estimate CapEx on a property during preliminary analysis, i.e., without having to go to the state where it's located and asking around, i say this because there has to be a good way to estimate these things before going deep into the dealAny insights on this guys?

If it was me...I'd check with zoning to find out how many dwelling units I could build, and I'd find what the requirements are for those units (type of house, height and setback restrictions, etc.).Then I'd find out what local builders think the cost to construct would be - just get a cost estimate per square foot for 2 or 3 different levels of finish.

I estimated this to cost me $300,000 to scale.