Maybe at the 5 month time show them a few affordable choices and let them go ahead and pick.Be sure to follow through with what ever time frame you give them.

I would go even further to say that the downturn here locally is still a ways off and you can miss out on making a lot of money by sitting on the side lines for the next year or 2 (as there is zero signs of slow down over the next 12 months from all the indicators I follow).

For instance, one PM I spoke to has the following fees:50% of first month's rent to initialize tenant (+$50 just to draw up the lease)8%/month rents collected$150 flat for a renewalThis comes in at about 12.5% of gross rents in year one of a tenant's lease, and then probably closer to 9% in every year they renew.

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Find a different lender that doesn't have any internal overlays and just follows agency guidelines.

If you do end up using a GC, I'd still spend a lot of time on the project asking questions and following him around....you'll learn a ton in a short period of time. 

First always seek legal counsel with an attorney:ask them the pros & cons of some of the following:1) Debt: secure a loan against the property you receive interest payments.2) Equity: record an option to buy the property (ex. you have the option to buy the property for $115k for a specified time period.3) Purchase a partial ownership interest, ex. tenant in common ownership of 50% of equity4) combo equity participation loan , you share in the upside equity.

I don’t want to follow this route and believe the seller will actually close.

"Real Estate Commission Rebate Program"Pre-arranged and in place for pre-approved borrower/buyer clientsGood Faith Bid for a Purchase Price of: $500,000Listing Pays: 3%= $15,000 / Rebate to Buyer: $12,000Rebate to be credited at closing as follows: Closing Cost                         $ 8,000Home Warranty                  $ 500Attorney Representation  $ 700 New Flooring$New Window Treatments$New Windows$New A/C System $New Appliances                   $2,800Hurricane Generator$ Other: $_______________________________                                    $ 12,000 Rebate TO BUYER

So in essence for the price range of the homes I have been looking at i am not able to purchase 415k worth of homes while being limited to mortgaging only 4 homes which has left me with the following scenarios:1) I use all profit and mortgage some properties for a total of about 350k worth of properties.