By the way, did you know that if you ever sell your house, you will get (lot) higher percentage of your money back from kitchen remodel than from the deck work. 

if you have the explanation of why you should do or not do this it helps a lot in knowing if they actually have knowledge or if they just have an opinion with no basis.It is true that not all attorneys are like that, but unfortunately a pretty high percentage of attorneys are unpleasant people. 

There seems to be a magical number and percentage and they come to light when counter offers are made...so make an offer and play it out!

I also am certain I won't be buying a home for 1.25% of market value, but I think that tax delinquent owners will be motivated enough to sell for a good percentage off of market value, enough to get investors jumping on an assignment of contract in such a hot market such as West Oakland. 

Long term things look better due to amortization...but the cash flow is hardly robust when taking into consideration a fixed cap-ex (rather than percentage).      

BUT, what I'll also say, that while both of us can come up with numbers and percentages of my profit, what we can't come up with is the actual probability that a house will be uninhabitable for a good amount of time (I'm talking 4-5+ months).

The condition of the property is a big part of whether you can shave that percentage down or not. 

For example, a builder will construct a retail establishment for an owner, and the builder will receive a percentage of the gross receipts for a specific period of time.

Bid parameters are set by the Tax Collector, and may be in whole, half or quarter percentage points.

Small deals do not fit inside the standard deviation when it comes to ratios and percentages. for example - if you have a 10 unit apartment and you turns just one unit each month, and if you are really good the unit is unleased for only two weeks and your cost to turn the unit is half a months rent, then you are losing 10% of your income every month.