Regarding the proposal I tend to agree with Greg Dickerson's response above.  

Account Closed your contractor submitting a proposal without know what items the 203k consultant will require to get done is really a waste of time. 

What you have to do is get a good HVAC guy in there for proposals.

Pickels reminded the legislature of Arizona's claim to state's rights when objecting to federal legislation is proposed for Arizona, and that local municipalities should have the same rights.But that fell on deaf ears, as in signing the measure, Gov.

If you were to use FHA financing you would need to be careful with higher prices & higher taxes, 75% of market rents must cover proposed mortgage payment; We typically run max FHA scenarios and provide with all sorts of calculators; If you were to go with 2 Family you will have more financing options as a first time home buyer where we can potentially use 4-4.25% rate and no mortgage insurance, the difference in monthly payment can easily be $500+ which will help you with your Returns/cash flow... the bottom line structuring financing is step 1.

I'm guessing this is being proposed so that the seller is more incentivized to put cash into improvements so that they can fully sell and get out. 

If I could do it all over again, I’d do more of what you’re proposing in option 2!

In other words, they proposed a 2.5x increase and my counter is to ask for a 50% decrease.

And either, how much did they cost to build + land cost, or how much did you pay for the completed or proposed new builds?

I did the luxury market for awhile and we proposed a process that helped many.