While it has been a great learning experience about flood zones, nearly $5,000 a year in flood insurance kind of hurt the cash flow.

Licensed and insured GC's with a good reputation are worth their cost.

Deduct your monthly mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, repairs, cap ex, management, vacancy, misc. from gross rent to obtain your monthly cash flow.

After speaking with the seller, who is an 72 year old real estate investor looking to move on to the next chapter of his life, he give me some information about the property: rent roll is $103,000 annually, occupancy is 100% and currently there is a wait list, there is no property management company (he manages the property himself), cap ex, insurance, and taxes are roughly $21,000. the 20 unit complex is split among three building where two building have roofs that are eight years old and one building's roof is 18 but "in perfect condition", each tenant is responsible for their own water, sewer, electricity leaving the seller only responsible for taxes, insurance and upkeep. 

This stands in direct opposition to a capital intensive industry such as manufacturing where employee and owner skill may be less important than the company's fixed asset profile.While S179 is a valid strategy in the attempt to drive a taxpayer's taxable income below the 'threshold amount' so the SSTB receives the un-phased out Sec 199A deduction, a SSTB may not have the investments in fixed assets necessary to drive them below the threshold during the year unless they're already very close to the threshold.Some other ideas for taxpayers owning a SSTB to lower their taxable income:Roll taxable bonds into tax-exempt bonds.Life insurance & annuities.Real estate (it's BP after all).Oil and gas investments.Charitable gifts (including CRTs).Gifts to taxpayers with lower taxable income (powerful option is to gift a percentage of the business to a trust).If a SSTB is well above the threshold, a compelling case could be made that the business should be a C Corp in the current tax environment. 

I'm going to call the insurance company and make sure they will insure the MIL.

Can anyone please share some insight as to some specific items to look out for in hard money loan agreements and insurance policies for a fix and flip?

The Mortage, insurance and titles are in our names and not our LLC. 

I had no idea I needed insurance and said no to the first company that asked.

I have a good GC but I worry there's lots of risk and would need to purchase "Builder's Insurance."