Looking at my first rental property

[celiboy]

I am starting to look at cheap condos/apartment conversions as potential real estate investments. I live in Northern Alberta where housing prices have gone through the roof. In the past few years an average home here has gone from 150 to just under 300K.

Now these units I am looking at are all under 100K. As an example here is one....
http://www.mls.ca/PropertyResults.aspx?M...3fAreaID%3d6394

Certainly not luxury living but they are asking 72,000 for it - this part of town is kind of sketchy. I actually live minutes from this location in a house so this would be easy to monitor.

My mortgage would be about 450 a month and a 1bdrm unit would likely be rented out for 500-600 a month so I'd be pretty close to break even cash flow after factoring condo fees. I have paid off the mortgage on my home so this would not be a second mortgage.

There are other properties in the 100K range that are close to post secondary institutions. I could likely rent those out for 800+ a month but would obviously have a higher carrying cost.

Sure I could start out with a 300K fourplex but this carries more risk. Buying 3 of these lower end units and paying them off = close to 2000 in cash coming in every month when I'm 50.

Has anyone gotten into rentals on the very low end? Also can you recommend any decent sites that discuss investing in real estate.