I do agree that for all parties a fixed price estimate is best (you need to know how to estimate properly).To be successful as a GC, things like getting a large deposit, making sure you are always staying ahead on billing and are spending clients money and not your own, marking up all costs at least 20% to cover OH&P, billing appropriately for change orders, not to mention staying up to date on latest building methods and continuing education, are the minimum requirements to last in this business.Of course you have to keep construction costs as low as possible when you are rehabbing a real estate project.  

I would love any advise and look forward to continuing to learn through BP.  

Theres a lot of info here for you to continue studying!

In any case, hopefully a stable neighborhood will keep up with inflation and the value of the home will continue to rise as the debt on the property continues to decrease. 

I might be pretty biased about Texas but it will continue to go well as long as it gets all the people immigration.  

I've been couch surfing (read: bumming) the last year when I am back in the states, and I am incredibly grateful to my kind friends and family, but I can't tell you how old this is getting for all involved.So I decided to settle a bit for now, and find a reasonable home to live in that allows me to easily cover the mortgage, and at the same time continue to save more, and look for another property to buy and hold.

I work full time and plan to continue to do so but would like to add additional streams of "passive" income. 

To me, we are later innings of the REI cycle and to continue to play the same hand regardless of the situation IMO could be risky.  

Yes, one of the features we offer is online rent payments.  

If not, I might push my HOA to continue bugging him.