Here are my questions: 1: this market is a middle georgia small town. 

I feel like i am in this awkward in the middle stage where I still need to work my corporate job, but right on the cusp to make real estate my fulltime job.   

Largely, the appreciation in housing prices is coming from both new migrants and investors coming from the East (GTA) as well as international countries (predominately from the middle east).We are also seeing drastic increases in the rental rates which in turn are pushing investment property prices up as well.

My ideal location is in the middle so I'm away from severe flood risk, but still 15-20 mins tops to downtown or the beach.  

How have you identified quality contractors and kept them on pace?

In fact, getting ahead of it now while your business is small might enable you to grow faster so you're not scrambling to build these in the middle of the growth. 

A lender is the middle man who will sell your loan to the big banks and in most cases charge you points and higher fee's to support the branch and loan officers commissions.

Those failures are  more negligent than a PM allowing a guest who paid with expectation to stay at the house to remain there in the middle of winter when they arrived on a Friday evening as you described.For now you will have to rely upon insurance, I don't believe the PM acted unreasonably given the circumstances.

All that said, we just met them in the middle and gave them the credit because we wanted it to be over.

However, they approach financial health from different angles.The 50% Rule is a quick estimate that suggests operating expenses (excluding mortgage principal and interest) will roughly equal 50% of the property's gross income.The DSCR is a more precise calculation (Net Operating Income / Total Debt Service) that determines if a property generates enough income to cover its debt obligations.Deal example:- Class C middle class neighborhood- 4bd / 2ba single family house- ARV: 190k- Purchase: 105k- Rehab: 35k- Market rent: $1,400-1,525- Section 8: $1,475- Property manager: 10%- Taxes: 125 month- Insurance $1250 yr- HOA: $55 month- purchased and rehabbed with all cash.