You realistically need north of $160K a year total, verifiable income.

No HUD, so the amount needs to be verified, but it actually showed up after 3 months, 8 people involved, the Real Estate Commission, the local Board of Realtors, and enough paperwork to kill a forest.

Verify income from all applicants.

Keep that in mind and don't get discouraged.That said, starting out, it's very difficult to determine if your rehab estimates are accurate or not, and that's why it's absolutely necessary to have either another investor or a contractor who can verify rehab costs until you're confident you can do it yourself.Why not pay another investor or GC a small fee ($50-100) to spend a couple hours with you walking a house or two and working through what local renovation costs are.

But anyone can say anything so it is next to impossible to verify.

I've actually had buyers who would rather walk away from the house than change lenders (which seems crazy to me).I call the buyers lenders and do my best to make sure the lender has fully vetted the buyer- that they've pulled buyers credit, verified their income, etc (of course I've never had a lender tell me they haven't don these things)- but that doens't seem to have helped either.I feel like I'm missing something here- does everyone just deal with the fact that 1 in 3 of their houses aren't going to close and you're going to lose at least 5 or 6 weeks because of that?

My requirements are simple - verifiable income 3X rent, no evictions, no felonys in the last five years, etc.Get the place fixed up, then rent it.

Additionally I would want title contact info to verify what they are saying is true.

It sounds like the property has peaked your interest but I always make sure that emotions get checked in at the door and verify that the numbers and my exit strategy makes sense.Will the properties cash flow?

But that's easily verified, and many borrowers are used to doing that.