I do have boots on the ground and can possibly get by with assistance of a cohost instead of a full property manager for about 10% - 15% fee.

Do I need to get the seller to reduce to their price so that I could add my wholesale fee, even if the MAO is >$15k above asking price.2.

Additionally, if one wants to reinvest the money and the other wants to pull out the cash, this can cause issues.3: Do you have clear roles and responsibilities defined.  

But I would be aware of paying any upfront fees and it could be a good idea to vet the company as high-leverage opportunities can be places for scammers to make quick money off of first-time investors. 

If I buy more places, they will likely be single family homes only because condo fees eat up a lot of the rent.

However, It does still mean that my client can pull out without losing their EMD, and if there is a major repair needed, I can still request that repair or some compensation to the buyer for the repair.

My Realtor Brad Gilboe at BWG in Los Angeles did a tremendous job of pulling it all together for us.

Let's say $5M is the worst-case sale price, you are confident it will sell for more.Work your way back from there with the construction (hopefully a good estimate, slightly more than required to be safe), carry costs over the total project duration, selling fees of 5% when you go to sell, etc.

Plus, if you plan to leave the country in 3-5 years, managing STR as a business model becomes complicated and/or expensive (STR property managers charge 20% fee or so on the properties they manage). 

They own all of the house outright, you take a small fee of the rents for the work you do for them managing the property.