Christine,The 70% of ARV strategy is great but these vary based on risk/reward and supply/demand.  

Do you expect to be able to regularly wholesale properties in your State without a License?

Crap for 1 to 15k per house if you have to just abandon one because it did not work no biggee.. you have lost next to nothing monetarily. keep the ones that work throw away the garbage let them go for tax's.If your sitting in CA or AU or GB  or other foreign countries and you think these cheap homes are going to make you rich.. then your just perpetuating the greater fool theory in my mind... and the end of the day simple logic has to dictate.. if houses on the open market were any investor  experienced or not can purchase them for 1 to 5k  well then there is a reason.. and there is a reason that in LA or SF or PDX or SEA  or New York or Boston or other prime markets that values are where they are at.. supply demand and ability to pay for the asset.Detroit bottom line just needs to retrench.. if its only 700k pop now and declining and there were housing stock for double that.. it does not take a genius to understand there is a gross over supply and the better owners or tenants are not going to live in the roughest and most dangerous areas of the city they will flee to safer more stable environs because there are massive amounts of homes that can be bought in nice areas for 100k and under.

Ive been focusing my search primarily in Sacramento county and also look regularly in Solano, San leandro, and Santa clara counties.  

I would be really careful about giving him credit cards to purchase supplies.  

In Real Estate as in any industry that involves sales you are going to get teasers, people making it seem impossibly good like offering an 8 unit apartment building for $39,000.00 Who would not love to buy at that price but when you call they tell you , " Oh that was a typo and the building is really 1,039,000.00.I have found wholesalers much like most regular real estate agents do not provide accurate ARV, repair figures or potential gains figures, they also will put in a disclaimer that there is not guarantee of accuracy and buyer is responsible to do their own diligence. 

Did you perform regular inspections of the property?

Likely certified and regular mail would be sufficient. 

Otherwise, you will end up with units that look like every other unit in LA (awful).All of your construction contracts should require the contractor to supply and install the generic stuff (drywall, etc.) but only install the finishes (which you purchase and provide).

Locally I went to a Renatus meeting and found it very interesting the thing that stood out for me was that it was local group that got together and met regularly and helped each other.