source_impr...Depending on your goals (using it for you and your family a few times a year and hoping it pays for itself, parking some cash for a few years and hoping for appreciation or strictly cash flow) will determine what size home and what your budget should be.

The first chart shows the estimated return on a 100k investment where 100k becomes 193kA couple of questions:1.

@Adriana Collado Hudak - As the comments illustrate, there is no "one size fits all" answer to this question. 

Central heat & air*I made this below chart based on this community shared knowledge (Thank you all).

The home has fallen into some disrepair, particularly the exterior, and needs about $70k worth of work, mainly given its size.

Banks certainly care about depository relationships and more specifically the size of those depository relationships.

Comps for appraisal disputes typically need to be more similar (size, condition, bed/bath count), more recent, and /or closer in location than the comps used. 

Project size and asset class can greatly impact lease up schedule.

Because of your loan size, I would advise to buy the rate down using up to 2 points as those usually have the quickest ROI for the payment savings and you will not see rates drop low enough probably to do a refinance that makes since as it would take longer to recoup the cost of the refinance.HomeStyle Renovation loan does require all work be done by a GC so you cannot help with the repairs. 

But you will never get a GOOD Contractor to work for you when you operate like that.And you missed all the examples of what can go wrong when the customer puts themselves in charge of materials acquisition.....wrong items, wrong sizes, too many, too little, on and on.....