They would also be to scale and provide a basis from which you could have the draughtsman, an architect, or an engineer update them to show the structural renovations you wish to perform.

I figured I could start on a much smaller scale and earn some decent money on the side.

It's worth it at scale, but not worth it for just an occasional flip here and there.Now, all that said, let me add one additional thought...

but if you want to really take control of the situation and/or do this on a large scale (i.e. - more than just one lucky deal), you should be prepared to show people you're serious, and you can do this by giving them a few good reasons to consider this whole "5% down" idea.

I also do not believe that you can find 'really good deals' on any sort of scale (more than 5-10 houses per month).

This is easier said than done and an over simplification, but how about some sort of forced merger of the Big 3 into one streamlined entity?

We live in an upper scale neighborhood and believed we needed to make some upgrades to make it marketable.

Also, if the realtor listing the deal is an investor their contractor prices may be lower than what you can get due to economies of scale. 

Sacramento Pros: We live here, can network easily/do some of the due diligence in person, have a better change of the properties appreciating Sacramento Cons: We don't know as many people in the industry, the contractor we like is booked 3+months out for larger projects which doesn't seem uncommon for the area, we have demanding/long hour day jobs that would limit the amount of sweat equity equity we can put in, higher barrier to entry/ability to scale with our capital (due to contractor timeline, competition, price point etc.)Little Rock Pros: We used to live here and have a number of contacts in the area including a realtor that we trust, the price point is low enough that we could scale quicker by not having so more tied up in a single property, favorable landlord lawsLittle Rock Cons: Appreciation is almost non-existent at least in the neighborhood we used to live in (which is tied to top schools), we aren't close enough to do any of the leg work/would have to rely on others/wouldn't be experiencing the trends the same way as living in the area, a chunk of the networking would have to be done from afar vs. in personThanks in advance!

I know to scale to a lot of units, I will have to one day.