While you want to minimize the financing costs, it also has to be worthwhile for your HML, so you might consider using $100k in hard money, then using your HELOC and/or cash (in whichever order you're more comfortable with) for the rest, keeping enough in reserve for the repairs and renovations. 

What is happening with property prices today is an excellent indicator of what will happen with rents in the future.

@John Do Most of my investors rely on me to minimize the competition.

I'd love to hear from investors who have invested in areas where the cash flow is good but the economic indicators are not.

A month later the tenant indicated that their insurer had claimed "no liability" and as a result the tenant had decided to file suit against ME!

If you want to be active and want to be involved with some of the day to day decisions, as long as you have a great team in place the hours you will work will be minimal. 

I purchased this house for cash, did minimal work, and then listed it on the MLS and sold it to a builder.

Try to minimize financial loss in the process which is what you did.You can still try to pursue him for damages.

If so that can be a good indication of where things are heading.

For what its worth most deals I deem meeting minimal IRR standards is 13-15% but you have to dig a little deeper to uncover the real placements of cashflows and capitalization events... and then dig even deeper to verify the assumptions such as occupancy, rent increases per year, and what reversion cap rate was used.Again I don't look for IRR cause its manipulated a lot instead I look at total return on a 5 year basis.