I guess at the end of the day I’m trying to figure out if it would be worth it to hold the property, fix it up a bit and see if it helps with the rents or a minimum help with the resale value.

Hey @Drew Gelinas,I haven't had this request personally on any of my properties, but know people in another STR investor community I belong to that have, and that actually seek them out by developing relationships with insurance companies in their area. 

@Ben Pearce A house hack with a duplex is actually rather simple. 

Some MLOs like to process their own loans, but they aren't compensated for it and it's actually cheaper to the borrower if they do.

My guess is that Chad was not required to pay any commission to the buyer's agent as he wasn't selling any property, he was ONLY selling his services as a general contractor, which has nothing to do with real estate sales.

So for simple math, if you buy a property for $100k, put 25% down and your monthly PITI is $1,000 a month (just for math purposes, this isn't an actual number) you will need to have...$25k + $6k = $30k 

@Alex Weslingso actually I'm planning to move and live there since one of the tenants moved out so I'll go and live there so one of the properties will be only 5% down payment the other property is just 20%.

I'm guessing that a big concern in real estate hard money/private money lending, is keeping the money either turning, if the goal is for points or consistently deployed if the play is interest rate.

In CA, you need to pay the entitlement fees, gas tax fees, neighbor nuisance fees, walking fees, gas guzzler fees, street crossing turtle fees, and others I can't think of at the moment FIRST, and THEN you can apply for the permit to pull the actual permit. 

I recommend this because I found that my roommates took more precaution when asking for certain things and actually did take really great care of the property.