Replacing one bad fixture between material and labor can end up being 3X the cost of buying the better quality fixture in the first place. 

Issues we faced were conflicting opinions on the next home we should purchase for our portfolio and what upgrades to do when we were doing a flip, the cost of labor and materials, etc.

@Peter Tverdov it depends on going wages in your marketplace.I would imagine labor costs are much higher in NJ than in MI.

For a lot of things you can just look up material costs and assume the same for labor. 50% material and 50% labor holds roughly true for the entire project, at least for me here in Milwaukee, your labor cost will probably be higher in the Bay Area.100-125k spread would be tight, even for me here in Milwaukee.

The labor is cheap but is usually terrible quality.You have very little insight into the governments plans for development and i have seen that have amazing impact on some areas and terrible impact on others.If you are going through with the purchase i wish you good luck and urge you to consider traffic patterns.

I'm hoping things move a little more quickly once things go vertical as I heard getting slab poured is the longest wait but I'm assuming there is a labor/material shortage in general in the area so wasn't sure of people's timelines once slab has been poured?

As everybody has noticed the increase in materials and labor has skyrocketed which has thrown a wrench into condominium reserve studies. 

A $200,000 duplex might have identical rents in municipality “A” and municipality “B” but the property tax rates will vary, local regulations will dictate licensing requirements, labor rates will vary & the particular location will dictate insurance premiums since insurance carriers will weigh local replacement costs and whether the municipality is viewed as being a “plaintiff friendly” in arriving at insurance premiums.Better situated assets will attract better tenants.

You simply need to pursue sellers that need to sell.I'm closing on my first property since re-starting from labor day by December 23rd.

I then asked my PM to request 1-1.5 hours worth of labor from the tenant.