Pick a solid B-Class suburban area.

Same with all the others, NOBODY gets in without a solid Pre-Approval Letter. 

If it doesn’t Cash Flow at all then your wasting your time.  

I'm about 7 days away from closing on my first real estate deal and the thought occurred to me that instead of wasting time (and closing costs) dealing with a bank for the initial loan, I could simply use myself as the source of "private money" for the entire purchase (~40k) for a home that I intend to rehab.The rehab is expected to take 3-4 weeks and I already have a reputable contractor with a written estimate in hand and the cost will be a ~25k additional (worst case) on top of that.  

Vegas Property $135k3B/2.5Ba Inspection came back solid, no major repairs needed, fairly new everything... current renters have been there over a year now and they pay $985HOA - $178Property Manager - $90Current Lease is up April 2019About 20% of our own money is invested Question: after all is said and done we pay about $20 out of pocket every month...

Dive into agent's regular habbits.Follow the agent on twitter, or on linkedin, facebook or quora.The problem though with this strategy if you find the wrong agent... you can end up wasting lots of time... 

The deal appears solid but their process is new to me.

It's a great start that you have all the receipts and excel list, but you need to have a professional take a look if you want something that would be defensible to the IRS.To answer your questions: windows are generally considered structural so they'll be 27.5 year (unless they're a part of a 5 or 15 year asset - rare but possible), the floors depend on what they are and how they're installed, carpet and laminate are generally 5 year, solid hardwood and ceramic tile are generally 27.5 year, the deck could be 15 year or 27.5 year depending on how it was installed.If you'd like to have an in depth discussion on this and see some numbers PM me.

Most experienced investors who do this want to make sure they're on the same page as the person and they can work together without wasting a lot of time.

In my experience, I have heard investors who have become realtors say it was great and the best thing they have done and others it waste of time and money.