I just started my direct mail campaign and it took a whole Sunday (3:30-9PM) to do 200 letters and this was about as automatic as the average Joe could get:Printed Yellow letters using Officejet printer (Paper from Amazon)Printed envelopes using the same printer (Envelopes from Dollar Store)Bought 400 forever stamps from the Post Office to create the "genuine" effectStill, folding and stuffing papers was an extremely underestimated variable.

Some percentage, maybe 20 -25 % are “liars, scammers, predators”. 

-Wholesale deals are all over the place - we've seen some great deals, some ARVs that are ridiculous, and some that are priced more than it would fetch on the MLS-C neighborhoods are going anywhere from 70 sq ft to almost 200 sq ft in variable conditions.  

I suspect even a large percentage of those are redeemed prior to end of auction.  

- What’s a safe contingency budget percentage to include for unexpected expenses?

My question is if I made the HELOC go away from my cash reserves, could we then agree to seller finance the remainder and then use the cashflow from the STR to pay her plus give her a percentage to manage the property? 

Look for a market where a higher percentage of the population rents than national average.

We looked at some property in Belize recently and local banks had rates in the 10's for a 5 year term, variable rate, amortized, and with a balloon. 

I also don’t have a percentage, but in general - I have found Facebook Marketplace to have the “coldest” leads.

Typically it's meaningless until it goes hard and percentages of pp have definitely dropped over the years.