I am from out of state so wanted less maintenance in the short term while I build my portfolio and grow to the point where I am comfortable hiring a manager!   

Honestly is better spent as a down payment on a second building. 

Equity is your frozen cash that you access as it grows to build your portfolio 

We built a single family home version of a 2 bed 1 bath with surface parking at cost with no profit all in with land for 175k in newark ohio, a suburb of columbus ohio. when we push that to 3 units and closer to the city for our build to rent model the numbers go way better. a 30k slab for a single family home is 30k, a 30k slab for a triplex is 10k a door. we designed a 2 bed 1 bath design at 668 sq ft and it's very good layout even I would live there, but I would never build anything that small again. there's no economies of scale. you need density and shared lines, resources, shared roof shared slab, shared windows, etc the cost goes way down.

I'm interested in flipping, and short-term rentals at the moment to build good cash flow, then pivot into more of a buy-and-hold/appreciation play 10-15 years from now.

The building value of the rental is written off across 27.5 years.

During a recent conversation, the following question came up:------------------------------------------------------------------------"The question is:You buy a 'new build' house.

If not, they may consider building the ADU and down-sizing into it and renting out the main house.

Just want to mention that sometimes it works out better to raze an existing property down to like 2 studs and rebuild around it so that it still is classified as a remodel versus a complete new build. 

.- Build Relationships with Vendors: Getting quotes from local contractors or vendors for common maintenance or repair tasks can give you a clearer picture of recurring costs.