I really want to get to understand every part of the business as I scale upward, doing everything myself, until I am comfortable with my understanding of the details and how it works, and then eventually outsourcing it. 

I have added a scale fee which all include losing the security deposit  as well as the fee listed blow.  

If you're going to be investing on a small scale (under 1-2 million), I would just make a CA entity and pay taxes on it.

The only time this is implemented is on large scale commercial projects.

And as we know, there is not a lot of money in just managing until you get some economy of scale. 

The scale has to be there to be absentee owner.

Thanks @Wesley Chamberlin I hadn't thought about a sliding scale like that but I think you are correct.

But like you say to get any serious scale and profit one must take some risk and you need some velocity can't just build one or two at a time.

You won't be teaching them (either the agent or the bank) a lesson by letting the deal fall through only to punish yourself by not getting the deal, assuming you still think its a deal. these mistakes happen all the time, and a mistake requiring a $30 overnight shipping fee doesn't rate too high on the blunder scale based on things I've seen in my experience (these happen all the time!).

I have to admit I am fascinated by it and my curiosity is coming up with more questions than I have knowledge or answers for.I see many posts in the forums that mention the neighborhoods people are invested or looking to invest in rated on a graded scale..... this neighborhood is a "B' for example.How does everyone analyze and what data points are commonly used to come up with and then assign this "grade"??