In my experience, there aren't many agents who will be helpful with this process other than assisting in determining value.Good luck.

This just mitigates the risk that a renter will expose the material to too much moisture because they aren't going to be as conscious about it as a homeowner may be. 

If THIS is the case, why aren't people wanting to rent?  

I think there is a lot of value in sweat equity primarily if you're a 9-5'er and aren't self employed / run a biz I just want to stress the importance of having things done right the first time.

If the down payment is lower, you can end up with a bigger monthly mortgage amount and that may make it impossible to meet the 50% rule.If you aren't familiar with he 50% rule, here is a post on that.https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/88/topics/133...good luck!

If banks aren't going to lend to you, then private money is probably your only option.

. :-)I gave up on Zillow because the search functions aren't as good for me as Redfin's.

A lot of the costs are things that I know they aren't thinking about and need to be mentioned.My question is, when I break down all of the costs and total that up, my offer is going to be 20%-30% less than that.

I've found you can get the best deals because most aren't buying, people are willing to come down on price and banks want energy consuming houses on their books.

In-general, trade wars do not cause recessions and therefore pose little short-term risk unless they aren't resolved quickly.