(can maybe go into the hole depending on local codes).

Newbie, looking to purchase a single family home near Navarre Florida for a long term rental, buy & hold for cash flow.I do not live in florida, so I am looking for advice on things I should be wary of before buying, like paying for pest control ( we do not have Palmentto bugs in the midwest, but we make up for it with big mosquitos), sink holes, mold...Any things I should take into consideration before buying in the sunshine state.

It's a decent little rental that produces some cash flow, but we simply got traditional financing for it, requiring at least 20% down.

Is it simply that most off market deals require cash?

I started using REI/kit, but that has been a hole that takes my money without a return.

You are simply replacing your current loan with a new loan, and the difference (after closing expenses) is what you receive at closing.

@Ben Nelson mentioned the sage wisdom of correctly setting team members, that is a whole lot harder today because things are at such a level with so many factors at play and fact is the vast majority simply do not have the resource pool to have a truly well equipped internal team or knowledge base, it is a very small number of us who do. 

Refinancing the duplex might make sense simply because I'd have it under a non-VA loan and could then go buy a new second home using another VA loan.

You won't be able to simply look on zillow and find a house in atlanta you'll be able to BRRRR and cash flow on while getting anything close to 100% of your money back out on a refinance.

Prior to reading this book, I'd simply use the "% of rents" strategy, which I always found to be a little inaccurate because it's based on averages, and what rental property is "average", right?