When you sign a contract, HONOR your commitment. 

Your are buying/financing an existing business (even if you live in it), so it already has income/expenses that will be considered.

Assuming you have a trustworthy guy, maybe you don't save a ton of money with a fixed cost route, but at least you know exactly what you're committing to - barring some catastrophic find with the plumbing - when you start the job.

They are asking to see if you are going to commit mortgage fraud.

If you post the existing size of the house this will help us better give you a ballpark number.

I do plan to potentially venture into new property development deal down the road, but for now I'm focused on purchasing existing properties.

PM me about a monthly meetup that exists.

Option 1:  Spend $50,000 on a conversion from a huge basement garage to a mother-in-law unit that would increase your rent by $500 per month on an existing rental.Option 2:  Spend $50,000 on a down payment on your next deal that should cashflow $200 per month after expenses, in addition to the loan paydown, appreciation, and tax benefits.

This allows you to make your sellers feel as though they are in an exclusive group of home owners that have the best homes on the block. often times you can lead with a very simple and honest, "I would like to add your home to the package of carefully selected properties to be sold to cash buyers, there's nothing you would need to commit to even if someone made an offer to buy it."

My girlfriend (hopefully fiance soon) and and I are expecting our first (boy, thank god) in a few weeks, and I wanted to get started sooner rather than later and commit to my first investment.