Stick to budget and focus on tenant-friendly, durable finishes.

There's options here for all budgets and experience levels. 

Trevor, we've thought of wedding venue.

Half way through thought, we were over budget and went back to our hard money lender to close out the cards and finish the project.

The trouble was finding a contractor within budget.

Your budget can not dictate the safety of the project and your relationship with the town and permitting.

As a small business owner in a previous life, I found the bookkeeping super daunting, despite my love for numbers, budgets, & just data in general! 

Use full HYSA budget to fund ~$30k house hack funds (about 12 months)3.

We went way over our expected budget - by far our worse budget miss ever (remarkably we were only 0.5 week over our 2 month timeline).Using my rule, take the estimates and double them then add for lost occupancy and that is what I would be seeking or the owner have the work done using licensed contractors and do the work, take the risks, and suffer the vacancy costs.If you purchase having to do the work and your appraisal can handle it, the credit at closing is superior to price discount.  

I don't need lead generation, or budgeting.