Where to buy my next investment property?

[Abdul Azeez]

Folks - I purchased a property in Jan 2017 in Memphis, TN and the following is the analysis over the last five months. 

As you see, net income is -$5206.15. A few key things:

1. The reason for negative net income is because of 3.5 month vacancy. I fired my first PM and replaced with a new one that got a tenant on Apr 20. 

2. The reason for May income (rent) reduction is because the pro-ration of the rent was done in the second month with first month being full month rent. 

3. The rehab costs are the ones you see in repairs that I have to expense since I have had to first purchase the property. 

4. The cost in the Other section is mortgage principal and escrow during the months of Mar to May. 

5. From a cash flow perspective, I am -$3490.97 with additional coming due for the rehab costs that have been expensed but have not hit cash flow yet. I am still hoping that when the rent starts smoothening out in upcoming months my net income is probably going to tend positive. 

The reason I offer this is because this has been a good learning experience with rehab and vacancy being the key drivers of negative numbers below. I am in the market for my next property investment and am talking to a turnkey provider in Memphis, TN. My assumption is that the property will be cash flow positive from Day 1 due to their quality of rehab and pricing the rent below market which can reduce vacancy. Since my first experience going out on my own has not been optimal, I want to find out a few things and would appreciate advise:

1. Are there other landlord friendly markets outside of Memphis, TN that I can consider?

2. Can you provide references to agents or turnkey companies in those markets? 

3. I live in NJ. Given that it has high property taxes and is called a not so landlord friendly state, would you recommend investing here?

4. It's getting a bit cumbersome to track expenses, equity etc. by Excel. Would you recommend any specific s/w program? I saw a lot of discussion on Quickbooks versus Quicken.

Regards,

Azeez