Open mouth, insert foot.

My dad had past away the following year, and I was left with many questions and little answers... but I am motivated enough to follow his foot steps and make it happen.My short term goal is to "buy and hold" for steady income (debating single vs multi family), and also study retail/flipping as a next step.

You research all the houses that have sold recently I that area, consider the level of finishes and the dollar per square foot..

You will be able to develop your own walk through checklist to build an accurate SOW and build your budget.Until then you can use the square foot method of estimating (not as accurate).  

They give you a 2-3% discount on record ($60-90k), lowering their per sq foot asking price on other projects in the area and their reward is getting to baby sit a stubborn buyer with no buffer.

People doing building are telling me that it is costing somewhere in the $300 per square foot (all in) to build those types of buildings (small apartment style).

The optimist looks up and loses his footing.

With a little work/research you can probably estimate how much utility bills and taxes will be per unit or per square foot on most property options.7.

Its about a 6 foot rise.

So as with most online "free" services, the end users foot the bill at some point.