I do plan to flip a house here or there if a great deal presents itself, and use the money made from that to either pay off existing mortgages (unfortunately then having to pay capital gains) or purchase a few more rentals.

IF, FOR ANY REASON, SELLER (A) IS UNABLE TO MAKE THE TITLE INSURABLE OR CORRECT TITLE PROBLEMS OR (B) IS UNABLE TO OBTAIN TITLE INSURANCE FOR THE PROPERTY FROM A REPUTABLE TITLE INSURANCE COMPANY AT REGULAR RATES OR (C) DETERMINES IN ITS SOLE DISCRETION THAT IT IS UNABLE OR IT IS ECONOMICALLY NOT FEASIBLE TO CONVEY GOOD AND MARKETABLE TITLE TO THE PROPERTY INSURABLE BY A REPUTABLE TITLE INSURANCE COMPANY AT REGULAR RATES, AT THE CLOSING DATE, AND SUCH CLOSING DATE IS NOT EXTENDED OR OTHERWISE AMENDED IN THE SOLE AND ABSOLUTE DISCRETION OF SELLER AS SET FORTH ELSEWHERE IN THIS AGREEMENT, OR (D) DETERMINES, IN ITS SOLE DISCRETION TO DEEM THE AGREEMENT NULL AND VOID IF REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW, AND/OR REQUIRED BY ANY EXISTING CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT BINDING UPON SELLER AND/OR THE PROPERTY, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY AGREEMENTS WITH THE PRIOR OWNER OF THE PROPERTY, ANY MORTGAGE INSURER OR ANY MORTGAGE BROKER, THEN SELLER MAY CANCEL THE TRANSACTION CONTEMPLATED BY THIS AGREEMENT BY WRITTEN NOTICE TO THE OTHER PARTY AND THE ESCROW/CLOSING AGENT.

{Two years later they changed their minds and wanted to live in a freshly renovated unit - but that's another story].At the time we were renovating vacant units and both filling them with new tenants and moving existing tenants to free more units for renovation.  

My honest answer was I went to "Big Bank" because I have an existing relationship with them so they know me.

Maybe buying a condemned property and turning it into a parking lot or buy and existing one.

You can use a lien position behind the existing loan. 

Color I can handle, I just go to the paint store and tell them to give me whatever there most popular color is....its usually some type of contractor beige.I'm hoping that there is a service out there where I can take pictures and email them (or have somebody come to the house, but I'm somewhat rural and doubt they would exist locally) and tell me exactly what to put in.  

. , I had a similar issue on a 100 years old house too.in my case i resolved by improving a badly designed/implemented gutter system (all the rain water was just dumping over the walls, soaking into them then getting into the basement) and diverting that water away from the house. 2xprimer + 2x good paint.maybe this is the case here.if you don't want the hassle of getting rid of the existing tenants, vacancy and finding other (hopefully) better suited tenants, maybe first you can just paint the place inside and outside and resolve any safety issues (rails). what did you repair to the place?

Obviously, investors buying these "existing" turnkey properties would want to use their deferred maintenance to cover costs of paint and carpet replacement once the tenants move out.The biggest mistake with an investor purchasing a turnkey property is removed the 8-10% deferred maintenance from the monthly rent since they assume there will be none if they bought the property from a reputable turnkey provider.

I know there are meetup groups that exist, but I've yet to attend a meeting