Bonus points for knowledge on permitting/marketing.

Professional Real Estate professional status is not that easy to get if you have a full time job doing something else.The main benefit is that it allows you to deduct passive losses against passive income from the way I understand it.So if you have a bunch of rental properties lets say generating a lot of passive income and you want to offset that let's say with a large bonus depreciation passive loss, it may help you.I am full time broker and investor and spoke with my CPA about it the other day and not sure I had the right mix of income and losses to help me much. 

This is why I say cash flow is not the norm (but should still be your goal).I personally look at appreciation as a bonus and don't bank on it when making investment decisions. 

I agree with @Nathan G. although I am twice as generous and give 48 hours to pay. 

You got a nice bonus for taking the deal and you knew exactly what you were getting into....so nothing to stress about, you just gotta figure it out.

The bonus is their acquisitions team sometimes gets people on the phone who are not interested in wholesaling but rather list with an agent.

I don't expect appreciation and if I do, it's a bonus.

This is called bonus depreciation. 

I am somewhat familiar with taxes, and bonus depreciation, etc, but just needed more clarity on what goes where.Replaced Waterheater - is this a 27.5 year depreciation or is there a way to expense (~$2700)Replaced floors with floating vinyl floors (~$3600)New Appliances (~$2,400)Lots of misc, painted whole house, new hardware - I assume all of that is probably an improvement rather then repair?

You will gt a discount and bonus code.