The house has been in the estate several years and it looks like its finally making it to the tax sale.

I'm looking at turn key, I had followed Morris Invest for several months and had wanted to dive into real estate vs being all in stocks.

If not, you may need to increase the septic to handle two family, per your county health dept codes.

Since we are buying several of each item (we need 2-3 sets now) and hopefully will be rehabbing 8-12 by year 2/3, has anyone had success negotiating a bulk discount with either the big box brands or with a smaller family owned appliance store or even a retail distributor. 

I wouldn't want to be more than 75%-80% leveraged in order to have an exit strategy and a little protection but might consider going more if it would be to fund a deal that makes a lot of sense to do and that is the only way to make it work.The problem I am running into now is that my SFRs have appreciated over the last several years and pulling equity out to leverage them at 75% gets them to the point where they don't necessarily provide a good cash flow return since they appreciated faster than rent levels.

But, it does show that the assumptions you make when doing your modeling about inflation's impact on your income and expenses can be far reaching over a 40 year analysis.If it matters, this was based on a property in Severance, Colorado (near Fort Collins, Windsor, Greeley areas) but I don't think the property in this example has a huge impact on the difference between the scenarios.

I am looking to start a portfolio and a team, beginning with an apt real estate agent will be the cornerstone of that team - which I hope to hold for several years and several sales. 

You can list several properties as a 1031 backup if I am not mistaken. 

Our SFH rental in southern Idaho was severely damaged by a fire.

Usually those deals are for folks who have been with them for several years and are proven investors.My guess is, if you're going to be a "cash" buyer, is you'll need to have funds in hand, ready to settle.