Not only for the value losses, but also for services EquityBuild paid to the General Contractor for construction and/or materials, which subsequently resulted in numerous Mechanic's Liens against the properties from the General Contractor failing to forward and pay those funds to many of the sub-contractors and suppliers performing the work.

Your loan balance may end up way higher than your purchase price, all those labor/material costs were rolled into the loan... which you can of course pay off asap with no prepayment penalty. 

2: Check out the Learning Materials - you'll find everything you could ever want for pre-purchase due diligence, general rules of thumb etc.3: You don't trust your uncle?

For the most part,  I think much of that has materialized in the past 5 years with an exceptionally strong dollar.

I think HD's military discount is capped at a $50 discount (basically purchases up to $500) and it doesn't apply to building materials.

Lo and behold the duplex deal never materializes and I ended up missing out on everything.  

F meaning you won't roll down your windows and that you'll probably be repurchasing your rehab materials several times during the process.

It's been a big sacrifice obviously; while friends and family were off having nice vacations and buying lots of material items, we used vacation time to go work on rentals and saved our extra cash for down payments on rentals. 

We usually bring our pressure washer, edger & weed killer (tenants always let weeds grow up around the heat pump for some reason), screen material and screen tools, plan on painting any exterior wood railings, doors, etc., that may need it, stain decks, fix loose fence pickets and gate hardware, anything that we know would cost a fortune in labor charges if goes through the PM but we can do ourselves at low cost. 

Pay attention to leading indicators like building materials or permit pulls.3.