Paid 149k. 7 years later(needed a place to live, didn't take me 7 years to rehab lol) only 5k into rehab sold for 247k.

I am planning to make the move away from a pretty good 9-5 job in IT Management to purchasing, redeveloping and reselling SFR's and later on, into long term rentals.

Later I found BiggerPockets, and have been using that as a resource on nearly all things real estate. 

These are not mutually exclusive so I'd say keep your eyes open for both.As far as using cash to buy then refi out later, again it depends on your intentions with the property.

I'm getting ready to get a property under contract, it's a 12-unit run down, beat up...basically a complete rehab top to bottom.Here's the story: In 2005 it was sold for $320,000 then in 2011 for $85,000 for some reason (I'm thinking the neighborhood) the owner of the property in 2011 listed it at 50k and it sold in 2014 a few months later it was sold again for 23k.The current owner is very open to negotiating price and even at 23k its well below every comp I've seen for the area-there are apartment buildings literally on the same street that have sold for around $135,000 is there something I'm not seeing? 

I really do want to start REI sooner than later but I also understand the risk that I have to take with it.

(I have done initial interviews with them, but, of course, there nice and responsive initially, but later on, they show their true colors...)

You can always call back and offer more later right? 

Your numbers above for purchase price and comparable value 5 years later are suspect to me. 16,000 in appreciation over a 5 year period is equivalent to an average of less than 2% a year appreciation. 

I'd hate to look back at this deal at a later date and realize I only did it for convenience reasons.