Was it an easy process finding college students that wanted to rent from you?

Trading a little bit of your time for a pay check is not a rat race it is easy money.  

On one hand they are great tenants, they pay on time and are relatively low key, easy to deal with.

It's easy to say, "Oh, it's family, so I'm going to give them a $400/month discount on the rent (whatever the discount is)." 

Well for me its been easy to share when there were a few I'd work with but now there are so many newbie investors I'm thinking i need to charge a fee.

I needed something cheap, easy to learn, agile, and powerful. 

Once you find one that you feel is helpful, easy to talk to and may have your best interest in mind take the flight because nothing beats seeing the area a few times.  

This gives you a lot of experience, financing is easy, and a lot of taxes could possibly be avoided if you live in it for 2+ years. 

2nd question - does anyone have an easy equation on how to calculate holding costs while doing a flip as well as what profit margin you look to make?

If you can't take a call don't worry about it, if they're motivated, they'll leave a message.Really the only exception to giving everyone lots of easy ways to reach you is if you're trying to push prospects through a specifically crafted funnel.For example, I do rent to own, which means when I advertise a house I get hundreds of 'buyers' who can't possibly afford it.