The guys who I know that make the most pound for pound in the trades are ones who have low overhead and work out of their garage with all the equipment paid off lol.

., but the rules of thumb give you an idea of how likely a deal is to work out.

Maybe you work out $X more monthly for the first 12 months as the "down payment".

If you are consulting on or providing services for compensation for certain foreclosure work out options, short sales, loan modifications, etc... specific licensing is required.

Many highest and best scenarios, which generally don’t work out for most investors.  

Of course when first discussing my project with the contractor, we were on the same page and he understood my values towards why I choose to rehab a historic house versus tear it down and start from scratch, but somewhere his mindset changed and he thought he could get away with taking advantage of the situation.I am definitely trying to keep my eyes on the prize and hope that it will all work out in the end.

I was wondering if others in this market have been able to work it out with single family homes and how they have been able to make it work out well, breaking over a 10% return on investment. 

It's more of a story of someone who:. did not define the scope of the project. did not have the job properly estimated. did not prep the job site for contractors. did not prep building for day of work. did not work out a solution to allow the work to be completed. did not inform the right people to handle the sub contractor. did not make the right decisions to get the job completedThe only thing you would have succeeded in doing was insuring that your repairs would lead to more roof problems later by not replacing the plywood."

I don't know that this will work out.

You minimize your vacancy risk, add some clauses in there to protect yourself for evictions, work out semi-monthly rent payments and then analyze if the deal works out for both parties.