[aceupthepants]

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your next google should be property managers in the area.

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Not exactly sure what you mean by that.

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You need to look at the expenses. For example, let's assume you take out an 80% loan or $96k at a 7% constant. Your annual payments will be $6,700. Now, assume about $2k per year in real estate taxes, $5k per year in maintenance on the building, $1k per year in vacancy / rollover costs, $2k per year for insurance. Total expenses are now $16,700 with income at $16,800 for a total cash flow of $100 on an investment of $24k. That's a cash on cash return of less than 1%. Keep in mind you can get 5% in an ING savings account.

Now, these expense assumptions are just guesses. The exercise is to go through each one and prove out what the most likely # will be and see what your annual cash flow will be. You then need to compare it to the risk that you are taking.

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Are maintenance expenses typically this high? I guess I didn’t think expenses were this high; it seems very hard to turn a profit based on cash flow.