A strong agent who invests can help analyze deals, run comps, get rents, help you explore multiple investing strategies, strategize offers and negotiate best prices/concessions/ repairs. 

As for repairs on the purchase of a home prior to auction there are some professionals utilized by the professionals for costs to repair the home in best and worst case scenarios.

I'm thinking that repairing the plumbing leaks and getting the soil dried out could be a permanent solution.   

Are there any city or lender required repairs that will require an immediate injection of capital?

Hi Chris from the U.P. of Michigan.Congratulations on deciding to get into real estate investing with your first Buy, Rehab, Rent, Re-finance, and Repeat or BRRRR and you are wondering where to start and who you should add to your team first.It is good you have cash or cash equivalents to buy the property and complete the repairs.As far as who to have on your team first, I would say an investor friendly Realtor who can help you find deals and introduce you to the rest of the team like a good property inspector to hopefully let you know about potentially expensive repairs early before buying the property so you can buy it well or not buy it at all.

Otherwise, yes you have to either excavate and repair and replace or run a pipe burst through the line, which is usually as expensive as excavating. 

The LLC would essentially serve as a business checking account to collect rental payments from your roommates/tenants and potential write-offs for expenses such as property repairs/maintenance.

Glue residue can really be a pita, but a judge probably doesn't think so, but will usually respect hired out repairs.

Hey Peter, thanks for the comment and the insight and you are absolutely correct about knowing what sells in your market, I see this happen with a lot of fix and flip projects that are just in the wrong areas, the investor gets the house for a good price however spends too much on repairs and adds a lot of luxury thinking that it will push the ARV significantly higher than the average in the area.

Deduct NEW property taxes after you buyDeduct home insurance costsDeduct maintenance percentage, typically 10%Deduct vacancy+tenant nonperformance percentage(we recommend 5% for Class A, 10% Class B, 20% Class C, good luck with Class D)Deduct whatever dollar/percentage of cashflow you wantNow, what you have left over is the amount for debt service.Enter it into a mortgage calculator, with current interest rate for an investment property, to determine your maximum mortgage amount.Divide the mortgage amount by either 75% or 80%, depending on the required down payment percentage - this is your tentative price to offer.If the property needs repairs, you'll want to deduct 110%-120% of the estimated repairs from this amount.Be sure to also research the ARV and make sure it's 10-20% higher than your tentative purchase price.As long as the ARV checks out, this is the purchase price to offer.It is probably significantly below the asking price.