J Scott, you hit the nail on the head with how the middleman is not willing to share in the downside risk, even thought (from what I understand) there isn't any.

You've hit the nail right on the end.

I hire people who are practically homeless who work really cheap to help with mundane tasks like cleaning up roofing debris off the ground, pulling the carpet nails and staples up, painting trim and general cleanup but do everything else myself.

I can't think of any situation where I'd let a buyer move into a move-in ready home of mine prior to closing.If for some reason the property doesn't close, the best case is that I have to wait for them to voluntarily move out, will have to touch up the paint, clean the carpets they messed up, clean the toilets/sinks/showers, and fix the nail holes in the wall.

Awesome question.I read a lot of the replies, not all, and didn't see what I felt was the correct answer.You hit the nail on the head.

The value with anything over 5 units is ultimately tied to the rent it DOES produce or when running the numbers what it WILL produce in a conservative estimate in the future.You are saying 300k purchase and 200k in renovations.So you are at maybe a 720k value after rehab which is okay but not a great deal.They key with paying 300 is you have to NAIL EXACTLY the expected rents for fast lease up and the cost to rehab including materials and labor.Add 10% contingency on top of the written estimates.Your seller is saying 300k but I would venture to guess if you came to them with 250k cash staring at them and you said you would walk they would seriously look at it.You have to make sure you buy right and are not taking on an overpriced lemon to turn around.From what you have said you can find better deals.I wouldn't dump 500k cash into something MARGINAL for a deal.

As for REI intelligence - you hit the nail on the head - it is here.

I've mentioned this many times, but all that equitable interest stuff is fine for someone who flips a contract, but when you start flipping contracts as a business that stuff doesn't always hold water, you're in the business of real estate and you're assigning contracts to circumvent license laws, which is how they nail them in Mo., being in the business of something is much different than doing something as a personal one time investment.

Having gotten any roof quotes as yet, concentrating on nailing the inner rehab for floors 1 and 2.

Before looking at buying out partners and dumping large amounts of cash you really need to nail down a tenant first.