I'm just in the planning stages for a whole house rehab.

Mauldin City Center appears to be in the final stages of finalizing and I'd really hate to sell the house just before our area appreciates significantly due to this new development happening nearby.  

If your retirement utterly depends on having adequate cash flow from your properties, any downturns will cripple you.

I'm at the point now where I need to get out of the "analysis paralysis" stage and start taking some concrete steps towards my first deal.

If it is a luxury apartment with a significant premium, then I would want to make sure it is "ready to show" (maybe even do some light staging).You could start marketing it as a "Coming soon..." rental which will get the word out but not make it look stale.Also make sure the tenant moves out on the agreed to date otherwise it will cause problems.

But, the carpet never vacuumed, cared for in the least, ripped and stained in several places, left utterly useless, and I had to tear it all out. 

I ended up using  the concierge service that gave me money upfront on a credit card to update the flooring, paint and stage my property totaling in $18k that I have to pay back once it sells.If I do a cash out refinance, that means that I need to take my property off the market and stop working with my Realtor that put in a lot of work already into showing open houses and all the work she’s done behind the scenes.

The cashflow possible when renting by room to students is high, and that is what I need for stage one of my FI journey.

@Mike Flynn so essentially, you want the seller to perform in such a way that the agent will not get paid for the work they did preparing and marketing the property, potentially including paying for staging and photography.If it's not unethical, it's just downright reprehensible.I wonder what you do for a living.

No matter how you word it, the result is the same: You used cash to purchase the home, you used someone else's money to rehab it, and now as a final stage you will borrow money from a bank (based on the new ARV) to pay that "someone else" back.