If you do it yourself it should only cost a few hundred dollars.

I have screened hundreds of tenants over the years and have never had any good tenant balk at a M2M lease.

This means that they have the resources and means to complete the repairs and they are experienced enough to determine rehab cost without hundreds other people being involved.

Still hundreds of millions of tickets sold every year...

There are hundreds of options, just go get out there and find the right one for the first deal!

If the seller constructed the units on your property, then I assume some sort of building plans would have to have been submitted to the appropriate authorities in the city, and in that case you should try to examine the building plans to see if the plans for connecting the sanitary waste were followed.One investor I know is considering adding video camera inspection of sewer lines to his normal routine pre-purchase inspections, so that he can identify in advance a big ticket problem for just a few hundred dollars up front.

If you were starting out and had two or three-hundred thousand to get started using a cash flow and equity growth strategy, what cities would you look at as your first, second, or third target market?

I am assuming these are properties that you are actually going out and physically looking at because I look at hundreds of properties a week from my office.A lot of first time multi family investors I work with get racked with indecision and are often too nervous to pull the trigger and put their best foot forward when a deal meets their criteria.  

Don't be afraid the spend a few hundred bucks for legal representation, and don't be concerned about any HOA/realtor conspiracies.

Cost me a couple hundred dollars to fix.