If you can, do the renovations yourself to keep the costs down. 2) Find a seller who will offer an installment land contract with terms that enable you to have a positive cash flow. 3) Find private money partners who will defer their returns.It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

You could buy a prop worth $400k but finance $300k of it, but you'll pay taxes on that $300k since you're keeping the cash from the sale and replacing it with debt.Also, bear in mind that you're not just deferring CG taxes, you're also deferring your depreciation recapture, which is taxed at 25%.

-New Roof-Updated outlets / cosmetics-Deferred landscape maintenance What was the outcome?

Secondly you need to realize this is very common to not make any profit at all the first 6-12 months when you get into a multi especially one that’s distressed that has deferred maintenance issues.

But again, I'd defer to a HVAC pro who's seen the unit and knows the building.

Only then are you going to have an idea of the amount of deferred maintenance you will be dealing with.  

Whether I get taxed now, or defer it until later, makes no difference to me personally. 

Long story short you have a property with all of the deferred maintenance taken care of, rented to a good tenant,  and worst case you will have the money you invested into the project back in a year.

So half the profit is tax free and half is tax deferred. 

Economies of scale will be magnified if the units are in one place, however assuming you want a nicely maintained property you may lose some efficiency in a rehab, this is because many large apartment buildings have a lot of deferred maintenance and have not been taken care of by the seller.