Do your current expenses include saving for repairs, maintenance, capex, etc.? 

I spoke with 3-4, and the fact this company really brought passion and enjoyed their work was obvious in our phone call in their tone of voice, level of detail and the owner's personality.

I'm planning to use the FHA 203k loan to finance the purchase as well as the repairs.

I plan to hire a smaller contractor to handle the job and purchase the materials for them, also probably sub out items they are not good at like landscaping and concrete repair.

Then figure out how much tenant improvement work you need to do to get that new tenant and you have your future income and your repairs figure.

Estimating CapEx and property management at 10% each and vacancy and repairs at 5% each.

The advice I would give is to find some wholesalers to source deals for you, source your own deals via direct mail or phone calls, and also work with your agent on identifying deals and crunching the numbers to make sure they really work before writing any offers or contacting the seller to see if an offer can be made at whatever price you are thinking of offering.You and your agent should be a team and should be working together on doing what's best for both of you.

@Daniel Nguyen You could always have several structural engineers look at the property to quote on the estimated cost of repairs.

I don't know when a place would need basic repairs, or major repairs.

The investors that claim to be "killing it" with their vacation rentals are usually slaves to the phone, doing all their own cleaning and maintenance, etc.