The cabins are between 600 and 700 sq. ft. with higher end "mountain modern" finishes and are selling in the lower $200's.

@Heather Rudy Well your capital requirements on a normal owner occupant loan are likely going to be much lower than hard money.

I want to get my license for investment purposes (I know I don't need one, but I want one for access to more information), but I don't want to have to work for a broker.

You make up the cost of rehabs by buying lower, you don't usually get to ask much higher (especially on capital expenditures like a roof)

Your payment will be lower which will help with DTI for other future property investments.

So I have approximately 28k in accessible equity.

A broker may have access to a lender that specializes in what you're looking for. 

When asked what happens if some parts of the work come it at a lower cost, he said that would be his profit and if it's higher, it would be his risk.

If your going to buy a duplex in Memphis you better make sure you looking at something at a base minimum of $150k or better as anything lower will be in those bad areas that you won't want to stay in.

The downfall to that is that we spent too much on higher end finishes when we could have gotten away with lower cost items.