She is going to look into an agent and someone to help with the loan.  

I have a hard money loan through a family member and that is included in that 700k. 

Really something the lender should thoroughly explain to someone purchasing a home where the taxes at the time of closing don't represent the final/improved tax amounts.   

Whichever strategy that you choose, run your numbers, and definitely consider all the other benefits of owning real estate i.e. appreciation, loan pay-down, potential housing expense decrease and/or cash flow. 

Fast forward two weeks, we've finally got notice from the foreclosing Trustee the lender is generating a new payoff for us. 

Hey guys my name's Mike,I think it's my first time posting and have been doing a ton of reading and research, want to finally make the leap into real estate investing.

Im looking at 7% however I think a better safe guard for me to have enough skin in the game is to move the sales price higher just in case he decides to pay off the loan earlier.

@Beth Anderson, You can use a FHA 203k loan to wrap renovations into the loan.

Another issue is these homes have standard 15-30 year loans in my personal name ..... so that is another issue ! 

The refinance will get our down payment back, along with the current mortgage and renovation loan paid off.