I learned a ton: what typical mortgage rates were, what downpayments were required, how to make an amortization schedule in open office calc (like excel, but free) so I could play with different down payments and interest rate assumptions, how to search the county records for property tax information, as well as gathering information about the prevailing wisdom for sensible percentages to allocate for vacancy, repairs, etc.

I would say that if you are this new to RE investing, you would do well to allocate your risk over a number of properties than sink all of your available capital into one, as the chances of you making a poor decision on your first property are quite high.

The capital will still need to be allocated for the project and thus we won't get much more yield from it during the contract period.

It's basically this:* How much of our rehab budget is allocated as cushion?

I have allocated several thousand more than what I think rehab will cost.

@Ryan Weddle As stated, your 4 plex will be valued based on comparable comps regardless of the expense efficiencies/inefficiencies as the appraiser will not have the info to analyze each property.The last 4 plex appraisal I saw looked at comparable properties, to determine the value, but also looked at the rents of the subject property and allocation of expenses for the property to complete a brief analysis of that as well.  

Flip................you can pay back the loan even quicker and not loose much time of earnings in your 401k.Of course factors like fees for the loans, fees for the selling and buying of your 401k allocations, etc come into play. 

You can put your rehab site as a saved address to allocate miles to it.

How a major metropolitan city has no idea how many apartment units they have, or how they are allocated is beyond me. 

Make sure you fully understand what the expectations are and that you allocate / budget time accordingly.I would recommend that you include in the RFP your requirements to accept the assignment.