Our strategy is to buy and hold, benefit from the positive monthly cash flows, and sell after about 5 years of stress free property management.The issue I am having is selecting finishes that are reasonably affordable (dare I say cheap), durable for renters, and still get top $ on an appraisal when we go to refinance. 

Our strategy is to buy and hold, benefit from the positive monthly cash flows, and sell after about 5 years of stress free property management.The issue I am having is selecting finishes that are reasonably affordable (dare I say cheap), durable for renters, and still get top $ on an appraisal when we go to refinance. 

I have a tenant who just re-signed for their 3rd year.

Unfortunately, I've already signed off on the work, past warranty.

The borrower should always ensure they have a solid estimate of how long their project(s) will take and run various scenarios of numbers to select the most optimal terms.

When I posted the house to rent it out, they were the first to want to get on and I was going to charge them $1700/ month but I gave them the option that if they signed for two years I would leave the rent at $1650/month.

This RE company says that they provide additional training and they want me to sign a contract to be an agent with them.  

If you get this under contract ASAP, have all of your ducks in a row for the lenders (borrower PFS', property financials, etc.) and make a lender selection quickly, I don't see why you couldn't close by the hard date. 

But my biggest concerns are:Will the current legal owner sign a grant deed to you?

Agreed that you should certainly be speaking with an attorney you trust before signing anything related to this deal.