New-ish member from Gilbert, Az

[CJ Ashton]

I'm Colby Ashton.

I'm an "investor"/landlord by necessity... When we moved a few years back, it didn't make sense to sell our home at the bottom of the market so we decided to keep it as a rental.

In the subsequent years, I have found that I don't mind landlording that much and the extra couple of dollars of cash flow is nice.  So, I've decided to hunt around for more homes.  I'm particularly interested SFHs for a buy/hold/rent.  I'd like to keep everything within a really tight radius in and around Gilbert as I plan on managing the properties myself and don't want travel long distances to flip a circuit breaker.

My challenge right now is that homes in my area are selling for top dollar on the retail side and I can't get my spreadsheet to cashflow.  I've even looked at the auction results from the last few months and those homes aren't selling for much of a discount at all.