@Stephanie York  My clients often buy sight unseen, but I usually do a walk through and send them video.

@Andrew ElmasriBelow market rents - get the rent roll from the broker/seller and compare it to rentometer.com and your study of the market rent for that property and locationOvergrown or not maintained landscaping - easy to spotDeferred maintenance on the exterior facade - easy to spotNo online presence or marketing (word of mouth or signage only) - google search for the property...see if vacant (or not vacant) units are marketed (usually on hotpads, trulia, zillow, web site, and many other sites where landlords market.  

We usually pay $400 and have to go through the bank.

On a referral, I'll usually take 20-30% of the initial split and then 10-15% on anything thereafter.

This is a project that requires a city permit FYI, but if you are installing windows on a house you live in, you can pull the permit yourself.My husband and I replaced all the windows on the house we live in now - it was one of our first renovation projects.If you hire a contractor usually they will want to purchase the windows themselves, and that cost is included their quotes along with the labor cost for installation.

It might go faster than paying them off every month, but will cost you extra.  

Having a general working knowledge of the area you want to invest in is usually step one.I'm relatively new to investing as well (working on acquiring my 4th unit now) - I'm in the Chicago area and in general I know that returns in the Midwest can be higher than in coastal areas, so you have that going for you; but every neighborhood has it's own oddities and character.

The person posting a property on this site is probably flipping it and if it is a good rehab flip - in the Kansas City metro, it is sold way before it is ever marketed.Our rehab flips that we wholesale are usually sold before we write the purchase contract.  

If my next property I wanted to purchase was going to be a BRRRR strategy that needed a HELOC, are you suggesting just keeping the extra cash will help me to repair the unit as part of my BRRRR strategy or get more money for a HELOC, or be better able to pay the HELOC back?

I usually hop on Zillow.com and look at houses in my area, and look at what those types of houses usually go for, and how much rental rates go for in the area.