@Stephanie Irto sounds like a good idea.

Do a couple deals with your friends (who sound like they're ready to gouge you) and then get out of your comfort zone and do it yourself!

With some staging and paint, we were able to sell our previous personal residence at a small profit, and use the profit to leverage 3 more properties: 2 as investments, and one as our (downsized) personal residence at the time.

Your plan sounds great.

I like that the market hasn't recovered too far from the GFC but with the aggressive incentives for business and jobs coming to the area, it feels like an area on the cusp of a Stage 2 Buyer's Market.

They emphasized that the deal still needs to be sound, but this makes it significantly better

Also keep in mind non-rehab related costs such as holding costs (utilities, taxes, mortgage payments, etc) and selling costs (commissions - typically around 6% total, staging - if applicable, etc).

It sounds like you have good records given you track everything in Quickbooks etc.

Having given this idea some thought, you have not provided enjoying information for me to make a sound decision.For what it’s worth, you may have equity today, but it may be non-existent tomorrow.  

What it sounds like is the initial inspection was not done correctly and it was partially repaired.