Your conservative approach should serve you very well, so long as you are REGULARLY putting in conservative Offers on MANY properties, rather than being tempted to be less conservative on one particular property by trying to second-guess the Seller and coming up with excuses to increase your own Risk. 

So I'm guessing I should just move out and have everything fixed after I leave if I'm concerned about deductions? 

I could just say "ditto" to what Dawn just said and I don't want to sound like Mr Drama person to say you're putting yourself into a death spiral but I guess this is what I've said many times, if you get on their bad side, well they can make life hell for you.

We have only been doing this a few years but it is sometimes hard to guess what houses will redeem and what ones won't (though I have never gotten a very high end house - those have always redeemed. 

I guess I just need to vent , I have had the desire to own rental property for a long while I purchased a condo in "94 and 16 years later a 2 unit both was for me to live in with my family but I want the rental property for the income so that I can retire with some passive income.

I guess I need to start somewhere.

@Paul Magnotta, I am guessing that Brandon was just making the sensible suggestion that whatever real estate you are targeting, try to get it for at least a 20% discount off current market value, so that your profit has already begun.

If we were to build, we would be self performing everything, no subs, all in-house employees (frankly, it's not that hard), financials might be a problem, it is not as strong to build a 1-2M project - gross receipts around 300-400k this year if I were to guess and 290k from march 2014-aug 2014 (our 2014 fiscal year), license and insurance is fine, experience??

Upon reflection, I guess my biggest concern is whether my research is actually giving me good information about area rents.

(Do you see why you DON'T want to try to out-guess what others might be doing)?