Lately I find myself doing clerical duties making sure that I'm escrowing enough for taxes and insurance when I should be buying and selling notes and properties.

I guess the hard part is finding a lender who specializes in VA Loans. 

In reference to finding the best contractors, I highly recommend networking and getting to know high volume investors in your area and asksing them for recommendations.

I would like to find tax strategies to reduce my taxable income.

Maybe communicating it more will help, but you cannot make people read.As a guest I would find making my own bed especially after a long drive or flight would be annoying. 

However, there's obviously no guarantee in what they'll find... so - how do folks mitigate the risk of the 2k-5k loss when looking to purchase a new property for a plan like this?

Add up these numbers to find the total amount of money required to close the sale.Private lenders can help manage cash flow during property renovations or lease-ups by providing more inventive financing options like interest-only payments or deferred payments.

Hey Eli, hope you've been able to find a reputable company, but I can PM some suggestions over as well if you still need some.

Designing and building single family homes with emphasis on build-to-rent juxtaposed built-for-sale are benchmarks that I am interested in making Americans' lives better through homeownership.How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

If you can find a 'prefinished slab' company, you should be able to get a regular size kitchen done in granite/quartz for <$2000.IMHO, it is worth it and can justify a rent increase.