Because of the 5 year look back on sec 121 you have roughly another 18 months to decide if you want to take advantage of the primary residence exclusion.  

My husband and I just yesterday talked about teaching our daughters the value of money and how it works, to ensure their future does not start as rough as ours did due to our genuine ignorance.

My experience (in buying several severely mismanaged properties) is that the owners will likely have equally mismanaged tax records (eg; all investment activities lumped together, etc.).My due diligence for an area that I'm "blind" to (have never worked in before) would roughly be as follows:-Speak w/ local realtors & property managers to determine appropriate market rent for all units-Get copies of all leases to verify current rent roll-Speak w/ my insurance agent, get appropriate quotes-For any utilities I'll be responsible for, find out local market rate for electricy/gas/water & sewer and use what I know to be "average" consumption for those services-Use estimates I know are sound for maintenance/capex reserves, etc.

Sorry I kinda did a rough run thru.  

The unit was in rough shape so there was some cost for new carpets, deep cleaning, new toilet, etc.

You put your friend in a rough spot as I can only imagine that your friend was well aware that your girlfriend and her mom were living there.

I have however been able to find properties which yield roughly 8% annually in rent and are able to meet the 50% rule while generating a small cash flow.

.- 1MM of property increases in value at 2% annually in appreciation (making a rough guess that at 100K per property you're in a C neighborhood with low appreciation rates?

hello, I've posted once before regarding multi-family investing and I've come to realize that I lack the funds to get started with that.. so my plan now is to purchase a single family home roughly 15 -20% below market value, fix it up if needed, lease with a one year contact, then after holding for 2 or 3 months sell it off to another investor with an occupied tenant.

Since this is our first flip, I have done a lot of the math required to make this deal a reality, but I am completely stuck on estimating closing costs (specifically with the bank).I have negotiated with my realtor a 1.5% listing fee and a 3% buyers agent fee so my real estate closing costs will be roughly $6750.