While the smaller properties maybe more labor intensive and require you to stay in constant contact with the property management (PM) company, having them co-located and hence allowing the same PM to manage them all for you, will benefit you down the road. 

I was thinking Option then negotiate with the estate. we do some of this in our distressed work outs.. at the end we prevail but unless your thick skinned and are happy funding litigation then you should be careful.... although to be fair its me suing the other party to either sell to me or sell on the open market. 

That's an interesting point Jason,I like your intensity and straight forward attitude. 

I don't think there's any set rules on what you can start with when it comes to the lenders as long as the numbers work out andyou feel comfortable with it, at least that's how my lender treated it. 

Even if the BRRRR numbers didn't work out so nicely and let's say it appraised low so you had to leave 10-20k in there, this is now rented out at 1400/M. 

Maybe they would be interested in seller financing and work out some win-win terms.

Or would you work out the NOI first, offer on that, and then have the period of due diligence to dig deeper?

Credit unions are an obvious exception as they typically finance any rental property as commercial.That said, I too prefer commercial financing as it is more in-line with how one would finance any capital intense business.

- How did it work out?

I have run the numbers on the calculators and the numbers all work out.