Driving relevant traffic to both a website and socials is hard without throwing some money behind it.

Which will also depend on the neighborhood.You want to, "rehab/maintain to the Neighborhood".Most investors go overboard on their first rehab and waste a decent amount of money.

Right now you have $1,000 in cash flow that can be used to fund other projects (seed money), pay you in profit to supplement your lifestyle, or fill in any gaps for underperforming properties.  

In the meantime I would put the money in a low risk account gaining 4-5% which for $250k would be around $1k/month.

Nobody likes being left in the dark when you’ve got money and time on the line!

It requires no money upfront, so you will join thousands of others trying to do the same in your market.

The marginal returns drove me to seek other strategies.So, this is not a "bad" deal if you consider it more of a learning experience than one that will make you a lot of money. 

refinance our own home with some money down + purchase another flip? 

(I mean Special Financing Company)...Since REI Hame Changers has chosen to associate themselves with such a s***** business, I would never touch them with a 10-ft pole...On Monday , January 6, 2025, I am going to open up a huge can of whup *** on these people...First I will file fraud charges at my bank to stop any further payments .Then I will personally drive to Missouri if I have to to get my money back.They ( REI and special financing company)will then be charged for everything to do with that trip-Plus I will sue them for the substantial lost wages because I have to deal with this-!!

We were paying a bookkeeper $450/month, plus the $90 QB subscription to do our books but I felt like we were still having to tell her how to categorize everything so it just didn't feel like we were getting our money's worth.