So please someone tell me, is it even lawful for the city to force you to pay someone to do work that you can easily and adeptly do yourself?

I know that if I hired this out to contractors, it would easily surpass $800 but I'd rather do the work myself and return any deposit if possible.

I have been in this business for over 20 years and I can say that easily 50-60% of the wholesalers I have relationships with do not estimate anything.

Banks are unhappy if you can't easily be pigeon holed.

Normally we are in small towns, on major roads with 35 mph speed limits, so they can find us easily.

However, BP could easily expand, but I'd bet a specific site other out of the US areas might be appropriate.

@Micah T UptegroveHey, I cannot speak to your specific location BUT you can easily get info on this via Loopnet. 

I caught them lying about having moved in after they stated they did and started putting in 'service requests' for minor things that they could of easily done on their own (Removing an air-conditioning unit - changing the dial of a radiator, etc).   

They are fairly easily trapped and then you take them to a no kill shelter.

There are also not a lot of property managers out there that excel at the rent by the room model.The second way is to plan for it when looking at properties and finding ones that can be easily separated off and turned into two units (say basement and top floor), then by adding a kitchen to the separate area you can rent both areas, instead of the whole home as one.