I'm very new to wholesaling (literally two months into the game), I'm getting ready to start a direct mail campaign for motivated sellers.

Or can you literally improve a house and have it be an outlier by several hundred dollars a month compared to anything close by?

By thousands of dollars in rent and about $500 in utilities. 

Actually the use of percentages on the expenses related to income rental properties are usually very accurate measurements based on hundreds of thousands of rental property statistics.

I've run into agents literally finding a rehab property where it would be listed at literally $10-$20k below the ARV and I'm thinking, how is that supposed to work.

It's beyond me why they had a manager literally stealing the rents from them.  

Most have yet to be paid a penny yet, and will be a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt upon graduation.

I've signed about a thousand docs with the bank, but I was wondering...Do I need to have a separate contract between just me and the contractor? 

Then renewal fees every year can be a burden but again at this point in one's REI career, the cost is outweighed by the opportunity.For a simple breakdown, here are the pros and consPros: MLS access, not reliant on someone else to see the MLS or to literally go view the property, ability to make money off of it, list your own deals..Cons: Fees (annual and upfront), continuing education of laws and regulation (i.e. time not spent on finding deals), always legally disclosing you're licensed, dealing with brokers taking a %Now, these aren't all the pros and cons but certainly some popular ones.

Then you've got to have reserves to be able to get started on the rehab before you get the draws so that's another couple thousand I would guess.Flipping can be profitable, it can be satisfying, but it can also be costly even if you get a good deal.Again, I'm not being mean, but I want you go get started with your eyes wide open before you get started.Stephanie