He connected me with a property manager and realtor in Detroit after helping me select it as the right market for me according to my budget, goals and risk tolerance.

In these cases, I would look at that as a deferred down payment, so you have time value of money as those funds can sit in a Treasury bill or high yield savings, or be invested elsewhere based on your risk tolerance.

This might strain the schedule for your project.Risk: Significant financial losses, including the possibility of losing your property in the event that you fail on the loan, might arise from a repair and flip project gone awry.Due Diligence: To make sure a hard money lender is respectable and reliable, it is crucial to carry out extensive research and due diligence before selecting one.Before proceeding with a hard money lender, consider your financial situation, risk tolerance, and investment goals carefully.

You need to learn how to use all the tools available to you (financing, insurance, management, etc.) and to understand how they fit together in your toolbox, as none will give you everything (e.g, insurance is required and it will cover you for many situations, but not always; asset protection (LLC) is litigation insurance and complements regular insurance, by minimizing the target and making it unappealing).If you are a new investor, probably you will not have a lot of assets and/or equity to worry about (but even that is relative and subjective to each person tolerance to risk) so I would not worry about that till you pass that risk threshold (in my opinion 100K+ in equity, maybe 50K if you are really risk adverse) and you should be primarily concerned with finding good deals and growing your business first.

I definitely don't have the risk tolerance to try to flip in the Bay Area although I knew a few people doing this. 

I am not familiar with SF and how things move there, if it's like SoCal $1.2k/mo is not the end of the world if your financial picture can support it.Everything really points to how you sit, your risk tolerance, and your goals.

If your risk tolerance is low then maybe only you should only consider buildings built after 1978. 

It really depends on your risk tolerance.

I hate the weather in eat coast and will have to tolerate it for a year or two until I live there.3.

For someone who is 22 years old, has a good job, lives in Cleveland and doesn't want to retire for 25 years, my answer would be different than for someone who is 55 years old, is unemployed, lives in New York City and doesn't have much retirement.Also, things like experience, risk tolerance, creditworthiness, etc. plays a big part.Sorry I can't give specific advice...