Contractors who are experienced and in the business awhile should know they are NOT getting all the money upfront period end of comment.If you pay all upfront even if they are a decent contractor and will come back to finish the job eventually they tend to put it off.

I was fortunate, again, to have my father co-sign on most everything, but Bank of America got so granular, I had to explain a $300 deposit in my account for selling a couch on Craigslist along with every SINGLE transaction over about 3 month period.

so during that period you can close on properties go into contract for properties or just identify properties. 

I’ll PM you for sure.As an update, one thing we realized is that a HELOC on the property to be flipped (appraised for $85k) would essentially destroy our credit (large loan for a short period, closing out a line of credit after a short period).  

I am just starting my education in real estate investment and giving myself a year to get my first rental property.

Right now I'm about to order some books to get better educated on the process.

My original plan was to remodel my home and use it as a rental but seeing how much equity i have gained in such a short period of time I have changed my mind. 

@Ley Woods check out the resources under the education tab above.

Unless of course, you want to purchase education from someone since that's a different ball game.

Therefore, it is still very beneficial from a tax perspective to invest in an OZ fund for that reason alone, assuming of course the OZ project makes a decent IRR over the 10 year required hold period.