@Chris Piper, so in short, your strategy is: find sucker-Sellers to let YOU tie up their property for a REFUNDABLE deposit, then find sucker-Buyers who'll give you NON-refundable deposits?...

But it will all boil down to who you are as an individual and how you decide what you want to do.I have friends that started very similar in your shoes a couple years ago bought a duplex fixer in Royal Oak.

Were I in your shoes, I would focus on what I really wanted to do for that time (passion about your work makes it way easier to go to work every day!)

@Ned Carey - I tried to tie you into the above response, but I guess it was too long by the time I got to that... here's acknowledging your approach to attracting help - I liked it!

I wear slip on shoes so that I don't have to take the time to tie them.  

You might be able to effectively tie up your Replacement Property by going under contract and having an extended closing., Or you might be able to put the property under a lease with an option to buy so that you have control over when you exercise the option and close on the property, etc.

The problem is that we lose other good deals while our cash in tied up in the rehabbing process and hold times.

So yes, we lost opportunity cost, but it's impossible to quantify that without having an actual deal in front of me that I could not partake in due to being tied up in the other deal.

And you're talking of tying up all your borrowing power for another 10-15 years - BEFORE you start receiving that 5.5% return?

Was tied up with a few buyers.