Struggling to Fund Constant Repairs

[Nick L.]

Me and my wife just bought our first rental property last month and have gotten to the point of putting a tenant in place already. Unfortunately within a week of moving in we are getting hit with a work order of ~$3000 for heating damper issues with the HVAC system causing the heating not to be balanced well throughout the bottom floor of the home. This was after already putting in roughly 12k into minor rehab to take care of some TLC and mostly cosmetic items like replacing the flooring, interior paint, blinds, etc..

Should we continue down this path of waiting for the tenant to bring up the issue and throw in some more money eventually turning it into a money pit and taking a loss on this property since we are bound to a 1 year lease? What happens if you reach a point where you either cant afford to pay for more repairs or are unwilling/unable to take on a loan to carry out those repairs?