what does it actually cost to do the first one, start to finish, in a market where nothing is cheap

did my first one in midtown memphis, 2019, so rates were kinder but the math still bit. purchase was 84k, rehab came in at 51k against a 38k estimate because the contractor found knob and tube behind the plaster and i had no contingency budget because i had believed the worked examples too. hard money was 11.5 plus two points, i carried it for nine months total because the appraiser i'd hired personally came back 14k under where i needed and i had to wait for a second appraisal cycle. total out of pocket from wire to refi proceeds was 41,200 dollars. i thought i was going in with 22k comfortable. the gap between those two numbers is the thing nobody says out loud and you're right to be scared of it, because being scared made me keep a spreadsheet and the spreadsheet is why i didn't run out of cash in month seven.

the one thing i have never seen work is building your contingency into the rehab line itself, meaning telling yourself "i'll just add 15% to the contractor number and call that my buffer." what happens instead is the contractor sees a padded budget and the scope expands to meet it, or you mentally spend that buffer on a material upgrade somewhere in month two and then the knob and tube shows up in month four with nothing left. the contingency has to live in a separate account you do not look at unless something structural or code-related forces your hand. your whitehaven numbers are not far off from what i was looking at on a per-deal basis even five years ago, which tells me the market absorbed the rate increase into the purchase price faster than people admitted. 28 to 34 out of pocket is honest. probably budget 38.