Geez man ,You need to widen your circle of influence because your investing friends don’t have a crystal ball anymore than any of us do and they are offering you bad intel because they lack knowledge of the future .

Most importantly if you are young or old it saves you a substantial amount of money.

Yes - there is a myth about the "all-cash offer" being worth a substantial discount. 

On one hand the contractor may provide you with critical information that will influence your offer such as identifying major cap ex or even items that may seem like a big deal to you but the contractor can tell you that it's actually not a big deal and nothing that should hold the deal back.

I realize that this is largely influenced by local market conditions.We've got about 13 acres of future development ground which won't be developed for 1-5 years.

So the trick is how to identify and market buyers are willing to pay higher interest (in the 10% range), with ability to invest a substantial down payment (equity lowers risk for your note buyer) and with sound enough work history that you believe they'll continue to make payments.

That's a substantial investment of capital and in some markets it doesn't make any since.

For a true investment multi-family you will likely need to secure large commercial funding - a direction I am considering as well for our next moves though the down payment and loan will be substantial.

I think buying a truck when you own three rental properties is hard to substantiate the need.

Hold 5% for 2 weeks after substantial completion to keep them motivated if they need to come back and fix something.