@Amanda welcome to BP and I will watch this thread to see which market you decide to go with. 

Next time watch your contractor so they don't go outside the scope of work.

Yes, it took about 2-3 months of watching the market for a deal.

At BP, you can watch and learn from the free online videos and educational courses on this site.

True professionals have valuable information, and are most likely charging for it.If you find someone who is where you want to be, put in the work to study them, watch what they do, listen to what they say, pay for information they have.The first step to success is to train your brain to seek information then take action,  not to wait for it to come to you.

I watched BPs newest webinar and learned Brandon's 5 "Rights".  

Having watched this unfold on a smaller scale (~4500 homes) in north LA earlier this spring (Monroe area), I can tell you what we have seen.There are opportunities to purchase houses in disrepair as a significant portion of the affected were not required to have flood insurance.

You have been watching Chip and Joanna haven't you.

We've been reading all the books we can get our hands on as well as reading through the forum here and listing to/watching podcasts.

Net is after acquisition costs, remodelling costs, holding costs, cost of sales, taxes, overhead and pizza to the crew to keep them working instead of taking off to watch a baseball game.