I am trying to find some hard data on such things as square foot costs, permit requirements when building out of state and scheduling comparisons.  

Take a 1200ish square foot house in say Baltimore that needs a new roof, and the property is worth $50k.

Obviously don't want to shoot myself in the foot while just asking for some friendly advice.

@Daniel Gonzalez's approach also isn't crazy.You can mix them:If you find a deal on redfin/mls/whatever, you're using that agent for doing normal agent things and they earned their check.If you find it on your own, or if another agent brings you that deal and sells it to you, that means they closed the sale and earned that check.Your primary go-to person needs to be exactly one agent at a time to be fair.

There is a little more hand holding than normal tenants so I'm not sure I would want to cross that bridge in a market that I didn't know or have the most trusted boots on the ground.  

@Alex Corvin, I agree that the CapEx would normally be higher but with the rehab budget of $30k I lowered the monthly CapEx estimate.  

That used to be the normal thing a lot of people did but since Dodd Frank and the Safe Act came into play your not allowed to do deals like that anymore.  

If you are personally flipping 5 hours a year and also doing 1 per year for several years in your retirement plan, the IRS could claim you are just trying to shift some of your normal business into the tax shelter of the retirement plan.UBIT and your California Franchise Tax return should not intersect an any meaningful way.  

This process normally takes 3-6 months and costs $2500-$5000.Welcome to the community!

My guy just puts them in automatically and also gets my moulding and base much cheaper by the foot from our local "Smith & DeShields distributor (millwork).