Your lawyer should cost $25-50k, accountant 20k, insurance 10k, rent, marketing material, sales staff, etc.While the 2/20 model has largely disappeared, you need to make enough on your deals to make the upfront capital outlay worth it.

Trulia.These leads are normally sent to 3-4 different agents, all at the same time.I did a test run with Trulia and Realtor and found that the leads were, by and large, garbage. 

I say this because most people use a realtor to buy and sell SFH/4Units but a large part of the rental market is done without using realtors, which in turn makes the MLS obsolete as far as rent comps go in my opinion, but definitely still check it if you have access.

My problem is I keep getting the cold shoulder due to the nature of house flipping...large amounts of money in and out and no steady pay throughout the year.

The trade offs are that the truck has an open, large bed and higher towing capacity but much lower MPG but the Hyundai Santa Fe I am looking at gets almost 30mpg and still has a good bit of cargo space with seats down and has a 5000 lbs. towing capacity. 

Currently my husband is AD and we have never bought a home due largely to being stationed overseas and in very expensive areas.

Yes, it's a large sum, but there was a previous all cash offer on the property and Kevin, while he is using a Mortgage, offered a higher Purchase Price and a higher amount for Earnest Money to be deposited on Contract.The Check for the Earnest Money on Contract was made out to the Seller's Attorney Mike as Escrowee, so I am assuming that the Earnest Money had to be deposited into the Escrow of the Seller's Attorney.Kevin then Applied for a Mortgage at a well known Bank.Title was completed and an Appraisal was ordered.Sometime around mid-June 2017, a few weeks later, the Seller's Step-Sister filed a Lien of Rescission to stop the Sale.When the Appraisal came back, the Lien of Rescission was discovered, the Mortgage Bank added the Lien as a condition to clear for closing.A Civil Case was filed against the Seller and the Case was suppose to take place around December 1st.Buyer's Attorney and Seller's Attorney agreed to postpone the original closing from 45 days after signing the Contract on June 13th to December 1st day, documented in email.The Case was then postponed to January 29th, 2018.Along the way, the Buyer's Attorney got sick and developed ALS.When January 29th, 2018 came, the Seller's Civil Case was again postponed to April 1st, 2018.The Mortgage Bank issued a statement that the Mortgage Contingency was no longer valid and has expired.Kevin then changed Attorneys.

If there's an opportunity to make large cash flows after forcing value, and still maintain nice margins that's better in a sense, but also riskier & also more time intensive. 

This would, however, eliminate customer retention risk, employee risk, and large amount of debt obligation.

CC is insane, I was recently browsing rentals and a renovated 1bdrm with amenities was around $2,500 in one of the large developments.