Scott The Book on Flipping Houses, The Book on Estimating ReHab Costs http://www.biggerpockets.com/flippingbookThe local REIA clubs will be a source of good info, support and people.Section 8 can be more labor intensive, go to IREM.org search for ARM certified property managers with Sec 8 experience.

Tile is labor intensive.

Blown-in insulation is labor-intensive but easy to do.

Rooming houses are extremely management intensive.

And these properties aren't in 'resort areas', you understand.But just last year there was a local low-income LL who passed away owning boucoup 'management intensive' properties that neither his wife nor sons wanted.

I see a lot of people prefer LLC's for asset protection, but since this can get pretty expensive and labor intensive, is there another way?

one thing i definitely agree with the both of you on is that you don't want to lose your credibility, i have never had any intensions on getting over on the seller, i was just trying to figure out how to get around this hurdle before i even experience it. see i would hate to lose a deal on something as crazy as not having the initial earnest money deposit, especially if it's a great deal and you know you could get bank funding and etc to make it work.now i used to wholesale/flip SFH, so i do know of a couple of ways of getting around putting up earnest money deposits, but thats done with the individual home owners, and most of the time commercial property transactions are done through savvy attorneys and i didn't know if any of those old SFH tactics would work in this arena

-wholesaling is very time and labor intensive.

Regardless of the city, real estate is intensely local.

(If my grand project wouldnt fly - I'd like to pursue the possibility of building a smaller multi family project on one of the empty lots -- a 6-8 unit building should fit along with parking and maybe space for a basketball court or sand volleyball court or the like)Here's my idea -- there has only been private rehab of the couple old apt buildings near the school and some of the run down houses -- however nothing built "new" as far as I can tell in decades.