Do You Agree with this Statement from “The Book on Rental Property Investing”?

[Sherry T.]

I read this last night from “The Book on Rental Property Investing” by Brandon Turner: 

• Break even on cash flow or lose money on cash flow, and you are on a path to financial ruin.
• I’ll repeat myself one last time: Buy rental properties that offer cash flow today.

I’m interested to know whether experienced investors Agree/disagree and why? 

[Joe Villeneuve]

Agree.  It depends on if you want to make money or lose it.  Rental properties are rentals to NOT lose money.  All cash costs, and negative CF is a loss, must be recovered before you can make a profit.  Equity is actually a cost of the property.  It's not profit until you access it in some form of cash.

I've seen investors loss properties with equity (a few with a lot of equity) because they can't sell at a price high enough to gain that equity, or because they can't refinance it due to the negative CF,...which would increase with a new mortgage.