I am confident that at this point I can pull about $3,000/mo off of the properties as a "management fee".

Bring in 1+ people who specilalize in mold remediation BEFORE you make a final committment to building - you should be able to get an estimate and an idea of the mild/serious nature of it.

As far as penalty clauses, I wouldnt work with anyone threatening me right from the start, jobs have unforseen issues, nobody knows whats behind the walls or what other scab work is hiding waiting for us to find it, just the nature of the beast.

It also takes out the subjective nature of the sort.

Well May was my first month home in almost 3 years, so naturally I took a 10 day vacation out of state.

To make this legal give them a gift card for a couple hundred bucks to a beautiful restaurant, or something of this nature.

zillow pulls from public records, so there is nothing they could tell you.

There was a recent thread where people were discussing the risk natural disaster risk involved in having all your properties in one city or regional area.

Given how subjective the term 'deal' can be, by nature, the average length of finding 'deals' is also going to be very subjective.Not to state the obvious, but a 'deal' to a wholesaler is going to need to be different than a 'deal' to a flipper.

I have my leads pulled form the Court every two weeks.