My short-term goals are to work with investors, to obtain buy and hold properties, and to buy a multi that I can house hack.

Long story short, I've paid him $51K three weeks in and still no contract.

Inspection periods in NJ as you may know are customarily 2 weeks. 

Following on the previous poster, we did use hard money to fix and flip, also regular mortgages before I learned how costly they are for short term loans in closing costs (coming and going), and then DSCR mortgages that do not report to personal for LTRs and STRs. 

This one asset will not make or break your portfolio, like you said it won't even cash flow well so really it's in the portfolio to pad the number of houses in the portfolio.On the other hand...170k pretax is around 102k clear after short term capital gains tax.That 102k gets you liquid and keeps the journey going. 

That being said, You should never feel like you cant call someone back to a job if their repair failed or came up short of what was agreed upon.

We've also gotten a new black-top on Hope Mills Rd, and I've seen a few places where pavements been ripped up for a few days, and then good to go shortly there after. 

Due diligence was trust in the #2 guy, who left shortly after, and talking to 3 "satisfied" investors. 

Seasonality in the Short-Term Rental Florida Market remains a consistent phenomenon with minor variations each year.

My short term goal was to get 1-3 rental properties and start building equity.