@Mehran KamariTL;DR market was hot, now stalled, first couple weeks January let us know how the market will proceed.Nov and Dec we've seen a huge pull back in Orange county.

ur talking about apples and oranges here.

It just seems that there will always be at least ONE tenant who will cost you an arm & a leg...either through damage, non-payment, eviction costs, or all of the above....

Lots of times people don't fully understand the tax code and they have nightmarish ideas of the tax man as that guy from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre showing up to chop off an arm and a leg to collect as taxes when it's really not such a horrible thing.

What I think your next step should be is to get together with an experienced investor, tell them you will do all the leg work for them for free!

I am doing the leg work of finding properties myself.  

If you're looking for the best returns and don't mind doing work yourself, turn-key probably isn't your best bet.Basically, it's an apples to oranges comparison...

One condo we did have foil wall paper embedded into the drywall, so we mudded primed and textured (orange peal) and there was no difference between the existing texture drywall and where we covered the wall paper.

My business partner is a long time family friend and a traveling contractor (and very good at what he does) so we have a leg up already that we need to start utilizing.

As many of you know, we are in Orange County, CA, and build new, spec construction.