Additionally, they can know of contractors or be able to offer rough costs for typical improvements.Remember that accurately estimating rehab costs is a skill that improves with experience.

Tell them when they pay the rent, you need a copy of the utilities bills to ensure they are being paid or as you said you pay and they add it to their rent. 

With our growing family and careers, the part of the plan we didn't act on, was acquiring a new investment property every few years.Currently the duplex is cash flowing about $1200 per month and it has approx $225k in equity. 

Additionally I tend to get first looks from developers, direct owners, and other brokerages before stuff is listed because they know me and that I screen buyers and make sure they have the ability to purchase and are not flakes and time wasters.  

Hope this additional insight helps you in making your decision. 

@Bill J Fay, I like the idea of asking for current projects or examples of work in addition to references.

I would like to hear opinions on cash out refi, keep two rentals, and acquire the third home that i would live in, or sell the one rental to use equity to acquire my next home (which i would live in) and rent out the home im currently living in which will be paid off in 4 years, leaving me with one rental property instead of two.Thanks for reading

I've analyzed about 75 "deals" listed on that site and not a one of them were acquired deep enough to flip.

With that kind of acquisition strategy, it might benefit to utilized a delayed purchase because most lenders struggle to underwrite deals in the span it takes for the auction to close.If you do it delayed, you can stay mostly liquid, then follow up the purchase with essentially a cash out refinance of the purchase price with rehab funds being put into an escrow account as well.Would be happy to explain further, but my clients that operate that way tend to prefer that method to keep getting their cash tied up too much. please explain further sounds phenomenal Jacolby,You purchase 100% in cash, then you do a refinance of the purchase price (usually about 80-85%) and treat it like you would if you were 'purchasing' the property again (so downside is additional closing costs) and add the rehab escrow to reimburse for the rehab being done.

The accounting aspect is a an additional thought I hadn't heard before.I know some people have used this strategy in an attempt to avoid triggering a re-evaluation of property taxes.