We were doing a rehab for my mom so budget was minimal (probably cost $40 to do 1000sqft, but cost did not include a lot of tough, free labor from me).

Look at it as a minimal cost to make money for booking jobs instead of climbing ladders.

Obviously, cash on hand is minimal as a recent grad.I know house hacking is often emphasized as a good starting point for newbie investors, but I am curious what other strategies new people might have found starting off with little money.

From looking at comps in the area that was sent to me...all properties have been selling in the low 100,00 which is what they bought it for...they have made minimal upgrades and I would still need to do a lot of cosmetic work to make it worthwhile...so Im not sure why there is such an increase and its supposedly went into contract twice and the deal fell through both times!

We went through a deal and dissected each step along the way as well as some open forum talks and investor pitches

Dont do that to yourself just to get into a house.The fact that the seller is saving the 6% realtor commission, minimal closing costs of doing a wrap should be motivation enough.

Arrange viewings in a group to minimize disruption to the current tenants.

That will help you minimize the challenges but you cannot eliminate them entirely.  

We went from bank to bank with our pitch for our second off market Fourplex to house hack and flip.

Be mindful of your floor plan to minimize the cost of plumbing.