Next time, we will hire out more projects sooner rather than trying to fit them into our limited free time, and we will increase our projected budget by 20% for unknowns.

I suspect plenty of title issues....that's why they're not selling with a realtor...either known or unknown....affidavits of heirship, or non-notarized deeds filed, or quit claim deeds, or bought on contract for deed with no lien releases, brother trying to sell house for someone in jail, ex wife trying to sell ex husbands home he "gave" to her, only her name not on title...and on and on and on. 

Talk to a title company.At the moment, the biggest unknown is the price you sell it for.

There is no way they can reasonably afford to keep enough crews or hire unknown entities in all the areas to try and fix up the homes to sell and try to make any profit on homes that are worth less than when the loan was initiated.

The economy, the interest rate, the build costs, and the value difference between new and existing will all be unknowns. 

The city does have a permitting process, which is a pain, but I personally wouldn't go into a market that doesn't have any licensing process because frankly, they will, and the unknown is more stressful.

We are still in the beginning stages and working on the proper way to structure our portion of the deal with the owners, which will compensate us for our services, as well as identify any unknown costs or issues we may have not considered, so this feedback is truly helpful. 

What a blanket statement to make about thousands of people whom you do not know and whose individual business practices are surely unknown to you.I've said it before, I know guys that probably buy and sell more real estate than anyone posting in this thread, and most of them are cash buyers who also list, wholesale, and do other types of transactions.  

It's about limiting future headaches and dealing with unknown people. 

I mitigate the unknowns associated with the rehab in a couple of different ways:1.