I am gearing up to buy my first house-hack in South Jersey, but am running into a snag with my analysis! I'm using an FHA and buying off the MLS, it's going to be pretty straight-forward - I'm not expecting giant cash flow, but I'm looking to get my feet wet.

I hear all the time in the podcast to analyze a bunch of deals, but I feel like the huge variable I'm always missing is an estimated rehab budget. I think the rest of the numbers are relatively easy to access, but I don't see another way of analyzing the deal besides getting an offer accepted and physically getting contractors and inspectors in the property. While that's well and good, I feel like that's really late to analyze the rehab budget. Maybe that's standard practice to wait that long on a deal like this, I just don't know. Basically, do I have to wait that long to figure out if it's a good deal? Any advice?

@Tyler Holzer If you already have a contractor you will be working with, you could also ask them to walk through the property before you put an offer on it.  You won't be able to find out quite as much detail about the scope of work but it can give you a good amount of info to work with to determine if you want to get it under contract and dig a little deeper.  Remember, you have a due diligence period to inspect and decide if you want to withdraw an offer or continue on.  So don't be afraid to use that time to "lock up" the house so you can get in their for a detailed inspection and determine scope of work needed for rehab.