Still have cousins in Shillington and Laureldale so I get up there pretty regularly.

I looked at a handful of properties in different areas, none of which I would call "up and coming," but every single property looks identical.  

only needs 40K in repairs and we make 80KSuddenly this sounds a lot better even if the numbers are identical.And is it really identical?

Chris Mason  so can I do that with regular conventional loan?

I would suggest you do some serious networking regularly by looking up local meet ups to talk with others that are doing REI successfully in the area you want to work in.

(there are advantages as to the loan management, accounting, tax reporting and in meeting legal requirements when terms of a new obligation are identical to an underlying loan that is basically "assumed")In your new partitioned note, part one is for $135,996.23 (whatever) which is the payoff amount at the time of settlement.

I have a vacation rental and many regular rentals.

Now of course with a regular seller-agent to buyer-agent, I just make sure the contract has what I need whether it's contingencies or something else and then sign.

If there are regular machines, find out who is maintaining those or if they belong to any particular tenant.Maybe should be done before an inspection, but check to make sure that the subdivision of the building is legal and all units are allowed.

I do have the risk that the rehab will go high but knowing what I know and what I saw I'm optimistic that I can keep it at $15,000.Hopefully I'll be writing another success story for the actual flip in the near future. you should do well on this one if there are no unforeseen issues, I buy regularly at Sheriff  Sales, the reason you had no competition, is the spread was not wide enough for most investors sight unseen, if I cant get in, I have to get it for 50% of ARV ore more depending on that ARV, based on your numbers, you dont have a lot of room for error, especially using hard money, 200k-15k= 185k- Commission and title 113k=172k- holding and finance costs 6k=166K- 124k=44k now if you get in the basement and the furnace is bad, or gone, and you have a bulging basement wall, and have to tear out landscaping or driveway to fix it,  your almost sunk.