I can put some money down, but I want to stay under $50k at absolute most and prefer to put down as little as possible.

Waste of money I think. 

And it is only like 20 bucks/year like others mentioned so unless you plan on being locked in analysis paralysis for a year you will not even save that much...YES if you are buying turn key and plan on using property manager for everything. 

@Tyriek Hull most important is getting title insurance and closing with a Warranty Deed, not a Quit Claim Deed.Only reasons to use agent:1) Leverage their knowledge and they may save you serious mistake2) Someone has to do the paperwork!

Luckily, I didn't need to tap into these funds for the initial work but I have a choice given to me: either have the contractor do more work or have that money go towards principle. 

Unless you just need a place to park cash, I don't see how you ever make money on those. 

I'm just trying to give some advice to the good people here in the BP community, that may give them some bidding leverage and save them a little time and money.

I wonder what factors of the project really effects the amount of money and work it take to set it up.

It took them a couple weeks to process the money or whatever they do when they first get the money.

The reason being, and maybe I assumed, but with the amount saved to start a portfolio, 150k, I thought a city like Cleveland or for the sake of argument Detroit, would stretch that farther for more homes.