My understanding, and please speak to your lender to confirm and see if you have restrictions, Is if the home has a appreciated greatly.

After I confirm the utilities are in their name I meet up with them again and collect first months rent and give them the keys.

If anyone where to be late you have two options 1)They should paid earlier. 2) Asking for confirmation of the date they ordered the transaction from the bank 

You then begin to create your team of real estate agent, lawyer, accountant etc.You also need to insure you have a high credit score, good paying W2 and cash savings for DP and reserve funds.

I also have reserve account to operate properties vs using flat percentage eat mo for items.

Can you explain to me what your reserve requirements are?

We got 4 reservations in the first week and now with our professional photos uploaded, I'm excited to see what happens moving forward.

The importance is to build your reserves.

The reason for the $70k was to have money to pay back my hard money lender and have enough reserves left to go the next deal without the hard money guy!

It could take some time to build up reserves to pay for any large ticket item so you want to make sure you aren't caught having to borrow (if at all possible).