Couple takes on this: Generically speaking, yes it often does make sense to increase your loan amount for monthly savings. 

Find out what that VA restoration will really cost youSecond, you are making a rookie mistake, one that the gurus play on to make you spend money for almost always useless sessions.

Quote from @Sean Carter: Hey everyone currently active duty military I would love utilize my va loan for investment  purposes don’t know where to start  in GA btw  Sean,welcome to the BP community and congrats on wanting to start your REI journey.

Why are you using rules of thumb and not using the results of the thorough inspection by a great inspector that you are surely using and would be an idiot not to base your numbers on? 

They've had "issues" doing ACH verifications on Hemlane and haven't been following directions.

The general reason (avoiding any personal thoughts on wholesaling as a business) is that when you have a license, any fee you get for transacting or assisting in real estate must go through your brokerage and they must take their percentage.

I would be less concerned about trying to pick land based on future appreciation & selling. 

How much and what would I do with the gain on sale, and how does that help or hurt my strategy? 

I think this would make sense in the long run for the rental property as it will extend the life of everything it touches like the Sink, faucets, showers, water heater, dishwasher, and Clothes washer while also providing clean drinking water in addition to the reverse osmosis drinking water system I already have installed.The main problem with this hardness level is that we get a major deposit buildup on all of these items, which will eventually clog up the faucets for tenants and lead to rusty shower enclosures that take forever to clean.In addition to this, it looks like we could likely have the salt added every couple of months by the property managers in addition to that it would allow for a quick inspection from them, and then also we would instead bill the cost of the service onto the ledger for the tenants.For reference, it does not look like the landlords in the area have water softeners.Thank you everyone for your input ahead of time.

I don’t allow smoking and my insurance company is cracking down and now requiring me to say no smoking on the premises.