Ask any "investor friendly realtor" if they are capable of selling you a $3M mansion, vacation house, new construction or any other specialty.

In the Colorado Springs market I have seen many SFH with the capabilities to be turned into a duplex.

I did some research with competitors and think occupancy is just hovering at 70-80% occupancy across the larger players.- the whole "raising rents" concept may not work due to the community that it's serving (lower income)- generally afraid of massive amounts of lay payments (which is part of the current problem)Thanks for the help, all

Or... is there a possibility that within 90 minutes of where you live there is a viable option that is not outside of your resources and capabilities.      

Two helpful tips that are commonly expressed, but not commonly put to action: 1) separate yourself from the pack; build a genuine relationship with those leads and don't underestimate the power of follow-up. 2) The more players in the game you know / the more people who know what you do (other flippers, rental buyers, lenders, contractors, etc) the higher probability an off-market opportunity falls in your lap.

Real Estate is so broad and will get whipped around like a leaf in the wind with all the potential options/opportunities, but you will find the successful players started doing one thing and they then did it better than the majority of the rest of the players and found success.  

I am sure there are some very capable folks on this forum, whose free advice would be spot on, but I'd recommend that your friend's mom talk with her accountant if someone else is filing the tax return they should weigh in.  

I'm capable of doing all the work myself and do it for other investors regularly so in the worst case scenario my rehab will cost around 20K Maybe 30k. in my eyes if I find a property for 50k and have to put in 30k worst case scenario, then I will still potentially make some kind of profit on my refinance, not to mention having a cash flowing asset afterwards.

Quote from @Suzanne Player: Hi StephenYou mention private money & hard money, but don’t say whether you went to a mortgage banker or broker for a conventional pre-approval.  

I'm very new to all forms of real estate but I'm handy and capable of many different things. i still work my normal job 50 hours a week.