The first property was a long term investment but I have a lot more flexibility now and am strongly considering moving there to house hack and potentially start building a portfolio.

I wanted to create a checklist of potential major problems to look out for when considering older properties (pre-1960 build), especially regarding deferred capital expenditures. 

I think a more prudent (and achievable goal, not to mention far less financially risky) would be to start free classes/seminars to teach them how to delay gratification, increase their education and earnings potential, find quality and affordable child care (perhaps creating a "swap group" within your group for free trade-off CC), learn how to properly manage finances, and all of the other tools needed before you can even begin to invest in real estate.

My opinionBRRRR can be risky if it is your first deal.I think a house-hack would likely be the better / safer approach.With $40,000, you can potentially buy a $500,000 house assuming you put $25,000 towards the 5% down payment, $5,000 is used towards closing costs and $10,000 as a reserve just incase something needs to be fixed up.

There were 6 offers total on this house so we had to be aggressive to win it, but because there was so much potential I was fine paying $30k over asking price.How did you finance this deal?

Me and my team would certainly be open to a quick consult to talk through your goals further and help unpack some potential additional approaches you may not have considered.Congrats on the recent acquisition!

After a while you learn the area and values and can easily spot a good value but for the most part we ignore the asking prices and send offers that make sense for OUR numbers and goals.We have to send a lot of offers yes but it ensures we don’t overpay or if we do pay full price it’s because we absolutely loved the asset and see growth potential.

Your network is the most important piece for any potential returns when you invest out of state.  

Interested in LTR’s, Multi-family, hard money lending, creative financing and potential partnerships     🏠 💵 📈

I would also argue that there are plenty of landlords out there that have rentals which are currently below market rental price.I assume that this part of the tax code was created to prevent those with multiple homes from letting relatives live in one for almost free, while potentially hiding that rental income and not having it registered as a business and pocketing the money.