I block off super popular dates (like 4th of July week), then unblock them 2-3 weeks beforehand with much higher prices than I would have gotten if I'd left them open 6 months ahead. 

Slack and other well known sites are blocked.

@Neal Daftary-I think self-managing a duplex from 1.5 hours away is going to be a huge pain.

Which ones are the most painful?

With fees and points and so on, their money cost me 16%, and it was a total pain to refinance to a 5% conventional mortgage.If you are going to do a deal which involves buying a house for $50k less than market price, then paying Eastside $10k to expedite the closing is totally worth it.Eastside funding are good people, and they provide excellent service. 

They said I'm going to be put under and have a nerve block.  

I was trying to PM you, but it seems there is a pending request and so it blocked me.  

*Listen for pain points.- Timeline.

Is the Only Way to Negotiate a Lower Price with Builders is to have a pain in the butt inspector find a laundry list of problems and meaningless in the grand scheme defects to compel them to cut their numbers to move to acceptance and closing?

I know it is painful when you have bern decreasing the rent already.