(I have referred them to my real estate retail buyer and seller clients and my husband has used them in his HVAC biz) However to my knowledge they have not worked much with investors, so they tend to need to "send someone out to get an accurate estimate."

Depending on how early you want to get involved you're going to need to go pull the data yourself.

You know the relevance, you know they are a necessary evil, but when you do them enough, muscle memory kicks in and it no longer requires active thinking to get you through the process and you can focus on the content rather than the routine of it.

It's been a blast but I did this mostly by muscling through the learning curve (of which I know I still have far to go) and using my savings from my W2 job.   

We had two colors that just weren't right, so I mixed them until I got a pleasing tone, then color matched it.

The properties in our target range are realistically going to need to be fixed up cosmetically, but we're absolutely avoiding any properties with significant structural issues.

It seems to me that you are putting business into buckets before you know which buckets you are going to need on your camping trip. 

The thing with a market like Long Island is it's going to be competitive and you're going to need to creative to succeed.

Isn't that $82,000 property going to need renovation?

I also need to factor in the condition of the home, I don't want to buy something that's going to need a roof next year.