It came out to $823 in expenses and in the area Section 8 is paying $11400 to $1600 a unit.

Believe me, the longer you hold the more your expenses will grow.

The numbers are tough and it's hard to account for all unforseen expenses.

It allowed you to get into the property, start building appreciation, lower your monthly expenses, and learn more about buying property.

As expenses fluctuate (property taxes, insurance, maintenance items, etc), the cash flow will be up and down and unreliable.

I'm still right side up due to getting a deal and finding a tenant who was willing to pay above market rent, but the point is this is a cash intensive business and little things can quickly add up to a lot of expense. 

Third, I was reading Small and Mighty (thanks Nathan Gesner) and found myself doing a "Wait a minute..." when he lays out that for B-ish SFHs he wants at least 6-7% rental income (after expenses), 3% appreciation, relative to the house price.

This is expensive but you'll have a place to work and meet with people when you're in town that matches your online presence.

I'd look at properties in Portland, Maine, which is also a mature and expensive market like Boston, and wondered why people would buy at such a low cap rate.

@Carini Rochester I agree with Greg but to be clear Good Cause does not require a landlord to provide free housing, it just forces them go through the onerous and expensive and lengthy process of actually going for non payment eviction instead of a hold over proceeding, when the landlord knows that a monetary judgement is worthless and just wants possession of their rental unit back so they can fix it back up and rent it again hopefully to a great tenant.Also the problem with all this is that from 2019 to now, landlords have gotten used to having economically or physically vacant units and have priced that risk in.