So my wife and I have wondered, a) should we try and buy the most expensive house we can (that's still an asset producer) with the lease money down, so that we can later sale those for the most cash and use that money to buy more rentals.  

We only ask for the first 1 or 2 pages of their past three months of bank statements and we ask to see copies of their checks or some type of verifiable transaction where they paid their rent on-time for the past 3 months.Renters can some big liars and they know how to produce fake copies of receipts and say they either lived with someone else, or they paid their rent with cash.

. :)  We can pay the 25% down payment with stock investment money and get a traditional mortgage on it, but this seems the least attractive because I'd prefer the stocks to stay put. 

The prices in this area were attractive, the house was solid and newer (built in the 50's).

Condo maintenance fees were relatively high, made it a less attractive property to continue to buy and hold.

I've made a few of my own pro-forma type tools and budget and building programs in excel, but the bigger pockets printouts look a lot better than what I can produce on my own.

You have the best of both world--an appreciation asset that is also producing income.

When I was able to make 50K a year between cash flow, appreciation and principal paydown on a 60K down payment, it absolutely made sense.Now that the down payment required is 150K a year and I'm looking at 50K a year returns on that dp, it's less attractive.

I think mainly because VRBO tends to attract older, more mature guests....That are more interested in leaving your place actually clean and not bitching about ridiculous stuff.

2-  What can I do, if anything, to make my project more attractive to contractors.I don't have this problem with subs, they are amazing.