Hello Arnold, I personally used my 401k to buy my home back in 2017 so I know from experience its a pretty easy process.

As you are pointing out - the expenses will all hit at some point if you own for long enough.If you buy a house that needs a new roof and a new furnace within a year... then you need to budget for those expenses in a year. 

I will have to provide and buy all the finishing (cabinets, countertops, tile, flooring, etc), but they demo and install everything.For the garage conversion, including the walk-in pantry and 2 bedrooms, the mini-split system, taking out the garage door and framing it and adding siding to look like the rest of the house, and add 1 window in each bedroom, the quote was $40k.I would love to get your opinions.  

Investing in real estate isn't all about buying property it's all about creating and controlling your own future.

So the lessons here are that until rates come down, most houses for sale at current market rates will not cash flow (well) where they are worth buying in todays market. 

Sometimes, when I buy a property, I am ok to have a short-term lease with the owner until they move out, but I agree that there seem to be too many variables right now that add uncertainty to the deal.Is the Title clear?

Buy a property(ies) as soon as you can.

I'm sorry you are in this situation.All lenders have extension options which will buy you 3 - 6 months to line up someone to finish. 

We decided to buy up to the bigger 4/3 fixer house in the cornfields, and the leaky pipes (and now 4 kids total!)

We do value design a lot and make sure that we have a great-looking color combo, but we buy mostly stock laminate.