rental purchases and resulting cashflow

[Andy V.]

I am totally stoked about rentals, having recently come to feel that they will be my main focus, accepting the fact that when a nice flip comes my way, I'd take advantage of it. Atleast that's the way I felt after 9 podcasts and countless hours reading posts here on Bigger Pockets. I'm looking at three properties being considered for BRRRR opportunties right now. After crunching the numbers on the Bigger Pockets calculator, they just barely cashflow! I used 10% for vacancy, 10% for repairs, $200 for Capex, plus taxes, insurance, and 8% for management fees. I thought I might manage my rentals myself for a few years but wanted to set them up for conversion to PM by others whenever I wanted to. In any event, buying $40 - $60K properties that need about $15 - $20K in repairs and have ARV's of $90 - $110,000, such that I need none of my own money down (using private lending for the initial purchase), yields a positive cash flow of barely more than $100! It hardly seems worth it if you excude appreciation as a benefit you can count on. How do you do it? How and where do you find properties that cash flow $375 +/mo. like I read about?