I try to have at least 1 year leases initially on each house to reduce needing to rerent, and the touch up you need to do inbetween renters.

So, it was likely a combination of small things, or perhaps something you missed initially?

We have a couple of consultants here, both consult the public and sort of a glorified real estate broker, but they also charge hourly fees in certain matters.

I'd say you probably don't need to worry about it for a rental at least not initially, though you may want to install them later.

That way you can initially buy/hold/finance in your own name if you want without the IRS taxing your rentals as inventory.

It should have been a red flag when I mentioned foreclosures in our initial conversation and she immediately mention a "cute" house she just listed @ $125,000.

You need to find a seasoned investor that you can latch onto initially.

I initially planned on getting out 40K of profit; looking at the current comparable now I am pretty sure I can get 80K to 85K out; no problem there, but I am starting to question if it is a good idea to flip the property at this point, or is it better to hold it and find financing to get my money and my originally planned profit out to reinvest while holding the property and still be able to make a small cash flow.

Sometimes they are easy to get released and sometimes not.My title and escrow companies don't charge me for title reports on cancelled escrows (but they would if I made a habit of canceling), so there would be no damages.

You had stated in initial post to "ask away if you need more data". that is what i was trying to do.