This is from our website, easier to copy & paste then try to write everything that applies to your challenge:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Robust Tenant ScreeningA bad tenant can lead to thousands of dollars of losses via unpaid rents, legal fees and property damages.

Ask if they've considered sellingOther good indicators of motivation:Absentee owners (they live somewhere else)High tax debt relative to property valueCode violations stacked on topFor disclosure, in most states you don't have to say "I'm a wholesaler," but you do need to be upfront that you're an investor and may assign the contract.

Short-term capital is extremely effective when the exit is clearly defined upfront.From a lender’s standpoint, the biggest safeguards I look for are:A realistic timeline (with buffer) for rehab, lease-up, or saleA clearly executable exit (refi, sale, or take-out lender already identified)Conservative leverage, especially on heavier value-add projectsBorrowers who understand holding costs and don’t rely on best-case scenariosWhere investors get into trouble isn’t the cost of short-term capital — it’s when delays stack up and there’s no margin or backup plan.Used properly, short-term funding is a tool to create speed and opportunity.

As a conservative investor, I am personally not comfortable in investing in any of those platforms as I prefer sponsors with a lot more experience, a lot more skin in the game, better fees, a model that can be recession stress tested, etc..

So with this plan you get a year to feel things out at NET-0 or better. ideally you rent your place for say $2,100 and you rent a place for say $1,800 making for a gross net of $300 which should be enough to also cover any PM fee's as well making it truly a NET-0 to test the waters to see IF, keyword IF you can be a Landlord BEFORE getting yourself "pot-committed". 

It does include a fee for my time as GC (I've made that mistake more than once, live and learn) and all finance related costs for 12 months. 

Yeah scraping Auction is smart but the real edge is what you do with the data after it lands in your lap.If you already have Apify pulling all new foreclosures each morning, I’d tighten it up by baking your buy box into the scraper so it only keeps stuff that roughly pencils in, like estimated ARV times 0.7 minus a ballpark rehab and fees still leaves you with your target equity.

BRRRR stacks multiple risks at once: rehab, contractors, timeline, and appraisal.A few key points to keep in mind:Appraisal risk is real.

Management Fee usually the best route for us in Canada.

You are interested in investing in duplexes to 4-plexes in the Midwest with light value-add opportunity to refinance out equity in a short time and go shopping again and what markets to do this.You also asked which strategy works to scale your portfolio well for beginning investors and we also recommend the Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, and Repeat method.First, I think stacking duplexes is the way to go as you should always have a rent check coming in and they are found on the market more commonly than triplexes or 4-plexes.