S/He's probably already got one foot out the door and is just waiting for someone like you to come by and offer to buy it at a reduced rate; because after you pay contractors to bring it up to a good standard you still want to be within the FMV/ARV.For you, though, the biggest thing is vacancy rate and income.Nonetheless, if I were you I'd be happy to pay a wholesaler. 

Beyond that, I am intrigued by the possibility of building a portfolio of small multifamily properties and generating cash flow to increase my flexibility and time with my two young sons.  

The other part of wholesaling that is a possible red flag is Equity Stripping, AKA Illegal Flipping, this was heavily regulated till a few years ago by lenders, especially M.I. companies, they have relaxed the rules, but was a problem pre and post crash. seeing the increase in this activity seems eerily familiar,  like 2007 all over again. just be careful especially with your license, Disclose Early, Often, and in Writing, My license is too valuable to me to be involved in this type of transaction, so i steer clear. if my entity is on the contract, I am the one closing. period. 

Therefore, you can't sell the home to yourself to increase the tax basis.  

A quick mls search shows the cheapest apartment rented in Framingham that was listed in the last 6 months was rented for 925 and Ashland $975 so it looks like you have room to increase rents if your building is in decent shape.  

yes, a fork from OpenOffice :)   I've dealt with software versioning for decades and as the MS *.doc is the comparability standard, moving off OO will be trivial if/when than becomes necessary

@Jose Jose, glad to hear you're thinking about this- water savings are an amazing way to increase your return.

I do have some large projects in the pipeline which could increase that number by another 100K or so but its safe to say low 300's and I will have a tax bill of about 50K this year so ultimately it is very safe to say I am liquid for 250K right now that I'm ready to invest.Due to my job I have access to subcontractors of all trades... roofing, tile, granite, flooring, paint etc at pretty much cost (day rates of the actual laborers).  

My standard is that $17K should generate $900 in monthly rent.

By the way, I don't know of any conventional lender that can close in 30 days today, even with the most cooperative seller.Did you use the standard CAR multi-res purchase offer and joint escrow instructions?