They have ways of making a basement waterproof when they build the house, but that costs more money.

The additional costs for commissions and costs are negligible in the bigger picture and if you are looking at capital gains tax it's a deductible sales expense which more than offsets the additional costs.

You know how to determine reno costs, arvs?  

Stay away from them at all costs.

So today, when contractors tell me bigger numbers for work that I know l can do it is hard to let it go.It was also a process building a good screening process and staying on top of legal changes that effected leases and other processes.  

That $50-100 nightstand will cost 2-3X+ more once you factor in the labor for someone to assemble it, multiplied by 2 for every bedroom.

Swinging in these cities are big costs and extremely high risk. 

As soon as the house is built, I want to start a new build on this lot to sell as a spec house, budgeting approx $450k build cost, sale price is estimated $750k, supported by comps.

Rehab project was supposed to cost $50k.

The biggest mistake I see is to worry too much about the cost of things like lawn mowing and water bill and the exact percentage for vacancies, but not being enough aware of the general condition of the property - resulting in 20k, 50k or more in capex a few years down the road.My advice: look for a quality property that has all the big-ticket items already done.