These are making me get excited about real estate investing following the BRRRR model.

The test is your intent and how you can demonstrate that - correspondence with your professionals, past history, current business model, length of time held is certainly one way to demonstrate intent, etc etc. 

In the negotiations, I got the seller/builder to give me a $2000-3000 credit to use on upgrades in the base model of the house.

Wanted to share some screen shots of my SFH model I use for market analysis to give some people ideas as well as hear what other people think.First section is the Current Listings where I enter data from Zillow.I originally started out w/ only 5 listings but the more the merrier so I expanded to 7 listings.

If the current owner has awful tenants and a property in disarray, who knows if he has skimped on routine maintenance, leading to a lot of deferred maintenance (which you need to underwrite into your financial modeling).Keep this thread informed as to your progress!

How do I make this a win-win and protect myself at the same time.I'm thinking using hard money to buy outright, than refi'ing to lower the mortgage and putting a tenant in it unless I can sell it but buy and hold is more my play...I'm open to ALL input and expertise...

There are plenty of properties in the La Mesa area that will fit this model.  

Free credit scores (like credit karma) are not the same scores that lenders will see because they use different scoring models.  

@Corey Owen just by briefly reading over your questions it sounds like you have a "JV" type business model setup.

You are definitely at an advantage with your professional expertise.