It is the biggest cost/challenge for making rentals work in my opinion.  

The biggest hurdle, is validating that you will not live in it.

I have other other problems, this is the biggest problem. 

But obviously the main downside is giving up equity that would benefit your future wealth.

I will say, with furnished rentals, it takes time and money to fully furnish them with all the bells and whistles but it did allow me to get higher rents... only downside is, if you are out of state, it is not easy to manage remote unless you have a good property manager/company.I have personally started to transition out of STRs due to zoning/town regulations and have already unfurnished one of the apartments to turn it into a long rental for more stable residual income.

Doing so would increase revenue to my property management LLC but likely has some downsides I'm not aware of yet.

The biggest thing is just do something.

I ended up getting lucky and finding this one on zillow.The biggest problem I'm seeing is that everyone in my area wants close to retail price for fixer uppers - and people are paying it.

Biggest clauses are: who's responsible for what, what are the penalties if someone doesn't perform their duties (including forcing them out) and what happens if one party wants out and the others don't.BTW: your brother should do this with his new girlfriend BEFORE paying part of her mortgage!

The biggest mistake of my life was not keeping 50 or so more of the 500ish I flipped, MASSIVE mistake.