Making the numbers work. Some of your thinking, please.

[Digger Odell]

I'm looking to invest cash in a single family home or two and use them for rentals. My goal, like all of us, is to try and make more money doing this then letting the money sit in a mutual fund. This is where it gets a bit cloudy.

I'm trying to wrap my head around some of these articles and podcasts where folks claim they have X amount of monthly income from X number of properties. There is very little discussion about what their actual costs are for things like taxes, repairs, accounting, maintenance, legal fees. Always "I'm making $5000 a month in income and you can too". 

Can someone give me some honest, true numbers for a property or properties they own. What they actually clear (net) on any given single family home after all expenses for a given year or, say, after 5 years of ownership?