Market Evaluation. No Meat on the Bone?

[Robert Kincaid]

Okay folks,

I am new at this so excuse any inexperience that I may be exposing here but why do I feel like there is very little out there in the real of buy and hold property in our market?

A bit of a background here:

I am new to REI.

I have yet to purchase a property for investment purposes but am semi-actively searching and analyzing properties to familiarize myself.

I have experience in property damage estimating. 

I am running my calculations based on the following:

100% financing at 5% (no, I do not intend to do this however if it cashflows at 100% it should be hard to lose money), 10% management, 5% vacancy, 5% maintenance, 10% capex. No renovations. Most houses will require renovation to some degree, even if it is minimal, but for the sake of simplicity I am not accounting for it here. 

When I run the numbers in this manner, few if any properties are cashflow positive or even close. I recognize that Spokane and the surrounding area has seen substantial market appreciation over the last 5-7 years and has continued that path through the pandemic. These numbers also tend to fail with most multi-family properties as well.

Are these numbers too conservative? I have the ability to use private money to buy into some lower end houses here to get started on my journey but I am not a fan of placing my faith so heavily into appreciation and owning an asset (liability) that on paper looks like it won't be doing anything but costing money. Even with self managing they rarely work.

I see some "deals" come across my desk but they appear to have little to nothing left for a buy and hold and I would say are likely marginal for a flip. Are we expecting a significant jump in market rents that will justify the price? Are house prices going to drop enough to support the lower rents? Is my math completely wrong? What are you doing that might be able to help me out?

Thank you!