Final Comment:I think as long as you buy solidly rehabbed properties (not the lipstick on a pig stuff), have a solid property management team (that you will absolutely pay for but that make your investment possible and your life easier), who is able to attract and retain high quality tenants, this can be a great addition to your overall financial portfolio (and doesn’t have to be the end all be all); it’s just one component.Feel free to PM me if you’d like to chat.  

If it's a lip stick remodel that's one thing but if the kitchen and bath needs gutted you could eat up $17k pretty fast.

Let's say you look at something and think of this is just a lipstick makeover.

Yes the building will be mine at the end of the lease, but I don't care if it is improved (aka lipsticked up)...That was the sales pitch from the broker.   

a few that the sellers claim are class b but when you dig in you realize they are just a class c with some lipstick on.  

So you know, they’re probably making $20k or so off each purchase as the typical model is to buy some junker in a crap neighborhood, put lipstick on the pig, sell it to you above value. 

Most "rehabs" here are lipstick on a pig.

Some just slap lipstick on a pig.

We are UC on a place on the cape and it needs a good lipsticking. 

We have absolutely no access to that sort of low-priced window work here in western Pennsylvania.It's worth nothing that J Scott's books on flipping and estimating regabs come out of his experiences doing lipstick flips on 90's-built SFR in the Atlanta area only twenty or so years later.