100 dollars per door

[Luis Saez]

I've listened to most of the podcasts. And I've noticed that as a potential buy and hold investor, the podcasts indicate that you want to have at minimum $100 cash flowing per door. Now i live in CT and this number doesn't make sense. I have friends, who without trying have 2 one-family homes cash flowing enough to cover the entire cost of a 2012 bmw. The cash flow covers the car payments, insurance, gas and maintenance. And he lives in new haven, CT, and that city hikes your auto insurance premiums substantially. He didn't give me a number, but I'm guessing he's cash flowing like $800/month at least. Is he full of it, or is CT just a different beast? Because i do note that most places in the US have homes selling for 100k according to podcasts, but most homes in CT are least 1.5-3 times that number easily. What am i missing

[Jeremiah B.]

I kind of hate the cashflow-per-door metric. $100 a month on a 50 unit complex that is in good shape, required no capital and will appreciate is a freaking steal! $100 a month on a single family residence (SFR) where I put 25K down on a 100K house would make me pound my head against the table.

There is also a big difference between cashflow per month, and actual cashflow.  If I ignore vacancy, repairs, leasing fees, etc., it's easy to generate huge cashflow and buy expensive toys and get a BMW.  But when I add up the reserves that I should have to cover these expenses, that cashflow drops from a 2012 BMW to a 1970's VW Bus.